A DECISION by the Department for Transport (DfT) to award the East Midlands rail franchise to Abellio in the face of the disqualification of incumbent Stagecoach could have far reaching effects on rail franchising.  The decision could lead to the Virgin Trains name disappearing, company founder Sir Richard Branson has

EUROPE: The Irish-registered NS Financial Services Co subsidiary of Dutch national train operator NS has sold its final assets and ceased operating, NS announced on April 25. The fleet of 54 Alstom Coradia Lint 41 diesel multiple-units used by NS subsidiary Abellio Rail Mitteldeutschland on Diesel Netz Sachsen-Anhalt services in Germany have

THE rejection of four franchise bids over pension liabilities could lead to a legal challenge from the national French operator SNCF.The Department for Transport announced on 10 April that bids from Stagecoach for East Midlands, South Eastern and West Coast Partnership had been rejected because they had attempted to change

UK: Ricardo and Roke Manor Research are working with Bombardier Transportation’s in-house teams to produce a full appraisal of the digital security risk profile of Aventra electric multiple-units, looking at their exposure to a range of possible threats from espionage to remote hacking. This is intended to provide Bombardier Transportation's customers

If you’ve ever wanted to take a peek inside the massive archives at the National Railway Museum and view some of the priceless artefacts, May’s edition of The Railway Magazine is not to be missed. Never normally open to the public, the museum has opened the doors to its archives to

TWO iconic UK-built Indian steam locomotives have returned to steam in recent years.  Former East India Railway (EIR) 2-2-2 No. 21 Express, built by Kitson, Thompson and Hewitson in Leeds in 1855 (W/No. 480), has been restored to operational condition.  Still in steam aged 164! EIR No. 21 Express after arrival at

ONE HUNDRED new metre-gauge diesel locos have been ordered to replace some of the oldest in service anywhere in the world on the 1,838km Bangladesh Railways (BR) metre-gauge network. The main Dhaka to Chittagong line is in the process of being rebuilt to double track, and is the most important

STEAM returned to the Kangra Valley 762mm- (2ft 6in-) gauge line in the Himachal Pradesh region in the north of India on November 16, 2018 for the first time in two decades.  The train was worked by 2-6-2 No. ZB66, the only surviving steam loco on the system, and operated

THE steam locomotives working the big open cast coal mine at Sandaoling, Xinjiang Province, China are known to many railway photographers as the ‘Greatest Show in the World’, but like all great spectaculars it will not last for ever. Nowhere else in the world offers such scenes – and

NEW ‘Traxx3’-design electric locos have entered service in both Israel and Germany in recent months. Bombardier is building both loco types at its Kassel factory in Germany. Initially, the company offered AC-versions of its new ‘Traxx3’ design, but is also now building a DC version and testing multi-voltage prototypes. Israeli