USA: Wabtec has been awarded a $55m contract to implement Positive Train Control on the 160 km New Mexico Rail Runner Express route from Belen to Albuquerque and Santa Fe. Wabtec is to supply its Interoperable Electronic Train Management System overlay which has been adopted by the principal freight operators. I-ETMS

SLOVAKIA: Škoda Transportation has rolled out the first of the Class 660 electric multiple-units ordered by national passenger operator ZSSK for use on regional services around Žilina. The €160m contract for 25 dual-voltage 3 kV DC/25 kV AC EMUs with a maximum speed of 160 km/h was signed in March 2018,

RUSSIA: Russian Railways has signed a €1·1bn order for a further 13 Velaro RUS high speed trains for use on the 650 km Moscow – St Petersburg route, Siemens Mobility announced on June 7. The 10-car trainsets will be supplied by Siemens Mobility and the Ural Locomotives joint venture of Siemens

USA: Dedicated funding for two new inter-city rail services and urban rail expansion is included in a $45bn package of infrastructure investment approved by the Illinois state legislature on May 31. The six-year programme put together by Governor J B Pritzker allocates $33·2bn for transport projects. The majority of this is expected to

THE Department for Transport remains locked in talks with Govia over another extension to the Southeastern franchise, barely two weeks before the present contract is due to end.It was in June 2017 that the DfT announced that four bidders had been shortlisted for South Eastern. They were Govia, Stagecoach, Trenitalia

ITALY: The first four of 17 ETR700 trainsets originally built for Fyra services in the Netherlands and Belgium are to enter commercial service with Trenitalia on June 9, FS Group announced on June 3.The trains are branded Frecciargento and will initially operate between Milano and Ancona, with two return workings

JAPAN: East Japan Railway has started work on a new generation of hydrogen fuel cell trainsets, a decade after early experiments with its prototype New Energy Train. The railway set an objective to ‘diversify energy’ as part of its ‘Move Up 2027’ 10-year vision adopted last year, and it hopes its

THE government is reconsidering the route of HS2 between Crewe and Manchester and also between Birmingham and Leeds, which are jointly known as Phase 2b.A consultation has been launched on proposals to use HS2 as a regional route, by providing two new junctions so that Northern Powerhouse Rail services could

Frankenstein A second rail union has called for privatisation to be reversed in the wake of a Transport Focus survey of how much passengers trust the railway industry, which left Southern trailing the list. However, the percentage of users who do trust Southern has risen from 17 per cent to

This remotely situated ‘gem’ is built on part of the former North Eastern Railway trackbed to Alston. It may well be England’s highest narrow gauge railway, and has deep-seated aspirations to return to Haltwhistle. Graeme Pickering paid them a visit. It was the remoteness of communities in the South Tyne