MARTIN Staniforth’s former Courtaulds Peckett ‘OY-1’ 0-4-0ST No. 2087 returned steam to the East Kent Railway (EKR) for the first time in almost 20 years in late-March to help celebrate the EKR’s 30th anniversary.  An initial test run took place on March 22 followed by a members’-only event two days

THE Lakeside & Haverthwaite Railway’s Andrew Barclay 0-4-0ST David (2333/1953) returned to operational service on April 2, more than five years since it last ran on the former Furness Railway branch. The ex-Millom Ironworks No. 1, which last ran in December 2013, is an ideal locomotive for the L&HR’s off-peak

TURKEY: Two US$30m loans to finance the US$86m development of a privately-run inland rail terminal in Kocaeli province, to the east of Istanbul, have been agreed by the European Bank for Reconstruction & Development and majority Chinese-owned Turkish bank ICBC Turkey. The terminal is being developed by a 67:33 joint venture

USA: Southern California Regional Rail Authority has awarded a joint venture of Talgo and Systra  a contract worth up to $138·9m for the refurbishment of up to 121 Bombardier BiLevel coaches used on Metrolink commuter services. There is a firm order for the modernisation of an initial 50 coaches, with work

UK: Alstom Transport is hopeful of confirming an order before the end of this year for its Breeze hydrogen multiple-unit trains being developed in partnership with leasing company Eversholt Rail, suggesting that the first trains could enter service ‘as early as 2022’. Unveiling a scale model of the three-car HMU at

A HITACHI Azuma train was due to carry passengers on the East Coast Main Line for the first time todayThe new Intercity Expresses should have started running last December, but the already postponed launch was further delayed by continuing problems with electromagnetic interference, which affected signalling and safety-critical CCTV systems. The

KENYA: Little more than a year after the opening of the Chinese-built 1 435 mm gauge railway between Mombasa and Nairobi, there are signs that East Africa’s love affair with China’s Belt & Road Initiative may be waning. On May 8, Kenya’s Transport & Infrastructure Minister James Macharia and his Ugandan counterpart

EUROPE: Eurostar has launched a virtual guide designed to help passengers with autism have a stress-free journey. The cross-Channel high speed train operator reviewed its travel experience with the Ambitious About Autism charity, which advised that travellers with autism are more comfortable if they have seen information about sights and sounds

ASSET MONITORING: Kapsch CarrierCom is planning the first trial deployment of KUBE, an industrial internet of things device which can be used to collate and preprocess data from a range of asset monitoring sensors before using existing GSM-R networks to send the information to an infrastructure manager’s data hubs. Staff

UK: The Transport for the South East group of 16 local authorities covering the region from Hampshire and Berkshire to Kent has begun consultation on its draft case for acquiring statutory status as a subnational transport body. This would give it the right to be consulted on new franchises, a formal