INDIA: Wabtec Corp officially opened a US$18m rail component and subsystem manufacturing campus at Rohtak northwest of New Delhi in Haryana on May 20.

UK: A national conference dedicated to safeguarding staff and customers on the rail network was hosted by South Western Railway at Lloyd’s of London on May 10.

UK: Virgin Group has applied to the Office of Rail & Road for train paths which would enable it to return to the rail network as an open access operator.

HUNGARY: IT, logistics and energy company Acemil has signed a co-operation agreement with CRRC Zhuzhou Locomotive Co covering the purchase of locomotives and the joint establishment of production capacity in Hungary.

UK: Buckland Group has brought together its wagon manufacturing subsidiary WH Davis and support services businesses Davis Wagon Services and Yellow Rail under the Buckland Rail brand.

CZECH REPUBLIC: Škoda Group has acquired 100% of the shares of tram, metro and trolleybus electrical component supplier Cegelec from Vinci Energies. Cegelec will operate under the name Electric Components as part of the Škoda Electric business.

The Philippine Railways Institute in the Manila area is training staff to support the expansion of the city’s rail network. But as PRI Managing Director Anneli Lontoc explains to Benjámin Zelki, there are wider ambitions for the centre to become a training hub for the Asia Pacific region.

UK: Network Rail has appointed 15 contractors to its Eastern Routes Partnership framework, which is designed to enable it to directly award key infrastructure contracts worth £3·5bn during Control Period 7, with the option to extend for CP8.

News from the world rail freight market.

USA: Railmark Industrial Railway is to take over operation of an 18 km freight branch in Tishomingo County, Mississippi, which interchanges with Norfolk Southern and the Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway.

AUSTRALIA: SCT Logistics has signed a multi-year agreement to use Trapeze Group’s Rail Workforce Management software to automate a range of complex staff and fleet resource allocation processes.

SIERRA LEONE: President Julius Maada Bio attended the unveiling of 10 diesel locomotives which CRRC Ziyang has supplied for the 197 km railway linking Leone Rock Metal Group’s New Tonkoliri Iron Mine with the port of Pepel.

DENMARK: Infrastructure manager Banedanmark has announced a revised timetable for the deployment of ETCS in eastern Denmark, following further delays to the national Signalling Programme.

UK: Industry bodies and drivers’ union ASLEF have welcomed the start of consultation on a government proposal to lower the minimum age to become a train driver in Great Britain from 20 to 18.

FRANCE: Paris transport operator RATP and national railway SNCF have transferred the management of RER Line A to a new control centre.

UK: FirstGroup has applied to operate Rochdale – London open access passenger trains, more than 20 years after a short-lived through service ran between the two destinations.

This week’s news from the global railway supply chain.

EUROPE: International high speed train operator Eurostar says it is ‘preparing to invest’ in up to 50 high speed trainsets, which would be fully interoperable ’across five countries and beyond’.

FRANCE: National passenger operator SNCF Voyageurs and manufacturer CAF have unveiled the first of the Z26700 Oxygène inter-city trainsets which will replace Corail locomotive-hauled coaches on 200 km/h inter-city serves on conventional lines.

NIGERIA: Minister of Transportation Sa’idu Alkali flagged off an inaugural train to mark the completion of work to modernise the 62 km Port Harcourt – Aba line on April 30, and has provided an update on progress with other ongoing rail projects.