EUROPE: A through regional passenger train service linking Liège in Belgium with Aachen in Germany via Maastricht in the Netherlands was finally launched on June 30.

UK: Royal Mail has decided to stop using rail to move letters and parcels, replacing its electric train services with road haulage from October 10.

Romania’s Railway Reform Authority is procuring new multiple-units to operate regional and inter-regional services under competitively tendered PSO contracts, but this is only part of a wider market opening strategy, ARF President Ștefan Roșeanu explains to Benjámin Zelki.

AUSTRALIA: John Holland has been awarded a A$470m contract for works on the Beveridge to Albury Tranche 2 section of the Inland Rail project to develop a 1 700 km freight corridor linking Melbourne and Brisbane.

GERMANY: The Go-Ahead Deutschland business which Austrian Federal Railways acquired from The Go-Ahead Group in February has been rebranded as Arverio Deutschland, a name derived from the Gallo-Roman ‘god of the roads’ Arvernus.

USA: Project promoter the Gateway Development Commission has secured all of the $16bn of financing needed for the Hudson Tunnel Project to build a second pair of railway tunnels under the Hudson River between New York City and New Jersey.

More than a decade after an abortive attempt to enter the Italian inter-city passenger market, private operator Arenaways is back, with approval to launch seven open access services and PSO contracts to revive operations on two local railways in Piemonte. Chief Executive Matteo Arena explains the company’s renaissance to Benjámin ...

BULGARIA: Stadler Polska has been selected for a contract to supply 35 electric multiple-units, Transport minister Georgi Gvozdeykov said at the Green Transition Forum 4.0 in Sofia on June 26.

GERMANY: The Land of Schleswig-Holstein has established its own train leasing company ZUG.SH, saying this will lower financing costs and widen the pool of potential bidders for train operating contracts.

SERBIA: President Aleksandar Vučić officially launched construction of the 22·5 km Niš bypass railway with a ceremony on July 6.

EUROPE: ‘Serious concerns’ about the competitive, economic, technical and operational impact of deploying digital automatic couplers have been set out by associations representing private freight operators in central and eastern Europe. They say DAC offers numerous benefits, but ‘hasty and arbitrary solutions could further hamper the competitiveness of the rail ...

JAPAN: A giant humanoid robot capable of undertaking tasks such as painting lineside structures, cutting back vegetation, lifting heavy objects and performing simple maintenance of overhead electrification equipment has been unveiled by developer Jinki Ittai Corp and West Japan Railway.

Polish leasing company Cargounit is seeing growing demand for multi-system electric locomotives and bi-modes with a last mile capability, and CEO Łukasz Boroń tells Benjámin Zelki that customers are increasingly looking for full-service packages.

Polish leasing company Cargounit is seeing growing demand for multi-system electric locomotives and bi-modes with a last mile capability, and CEO Łukasz Boroń tells Benjámin Zelki that customers are increasingly looking for full-service packages.

AUSTRALIA: A ‘state-of-the-art’ Metro Academy has been opened in Melbourne to train rail staff ready for the opening of the cross-city suburban rail Metro Tunnel at the end of 2025.

UK: Unicard has migrated paper-based ZoneCard tickets valid on ScotRail, Glasgow Subway and bus services in the west of Scotland to its ITSO-compliant smart ticketing platform.

SWEDEN: The Norrtåg transport authority owned by four regions in the north of Sweden has selected VR Sverige as preferred bidder for the next contract to operate local passenger train services.

EUROPE: Austrian Federal Railways’ freight business ÖBB Rail Cargo Group has formally launched its TransFLEX product, which aims to offer flexible freight services tailored to a customer’s individual needs.

UK: A campaign to raise awareness of the damaging effects of sending railway staff abusive social media messages has been launched by 15 train operators, with more expected to join.

News from the world rail freight market.