ROMANIA: Infrastructure manager CFR has called tenders for the design and construction of a 2·95 km rail connection to Terminal 1 at Henri Coandă International Airport, which would allow the operation of a direct rail service from the airport to București Nord station. The alignment would include a 1·5 km viaduct. The

There is nothing more spectacular than steam locos working hard through a snow-covered landscape. Such scenes are rare in Great Britain, but Chris Milner reflects on a trip to an historic and scenic part of Germany, where steam trains run all year round and there’s usually snow over the winter. THINK

Last summer Robert Drysdale embarked on an 800-mile round trip to visit four heritage railways in four days using the national rail network and occasionally a local bus. His personal account provides some interesting observations and food for thought. On the morning of Friday, July 3, 2018, I arrived at Newark

50 years ago this year, the first seeds were sown in a bid to save a section of the Great Central Railway in Leicestershire. Graham Oliver, the railway’s former chief executive, recalls those early days of an embryo scheme which has subsequently blossomed into the country’s only double-track main line

In this month’s Practice & Performance, John Heaton FCILT recalls loco trials undertaken by the LMS to assess locomotive coal consumption in a bid to discover whether trains of lower overall weight could cut costs on lesser used lines.  Any casual lineside observers on September 9, 1931 at Chellaston (some four

CHILE: Proposals to build a high-performance railway between the capital Santiago and the port of Valparaíso have been formally submitted to the Ministry of Public Works by the Tren Valparaíso Santiago consortium of local firm of Sigdo Koppers and China Railway Engineering Corp. According to the promoters, the US$2·5bn project could

THE new chief executive of Network Rail has revealed his plans for the organisation’s future, after a three-month period of consideration. Andrew Haines had already warned that railway operation was too far down Network Rail’s agenda, and Network Rail said the new plans involved ‘reorganising to put passengers and freight users

CHINA: Construction of the 176 km Chengdu – Zigong Yulin Passenger-Dedicated Line has been approved, with a budget of 35·9bn yuan and opening planned for 2023. The Chengdu – Tianfu section will be built for 250 km/h operation, and the Tianfu – Zigong section for 350 km/h. There will be intermediate

USA: A scaling back of the high speed rail project in California was announced by Governor Gavin Newsom in his first State of the State address on February 12. Newsom said the project 'as currently planned' would 'cost too much and take too long', and added that there had been too

UK: Plans for a reorganisation designed to ‘put passengers and freight users first’ and address concerns about poor operating performance on the increasingly busy network were announced by infrastructure manager Network Rail on February 12. ‘The need for radical change is clear’, said Chief Executive Andrew Haines, reflecting on his first

JORDAN: The Saudi Jordanian Investment Fund and the Aqaba Special Economic Zone Authority have signed a memorandum of understanding to undertake feasibility and technical studies for the development of a 195 km railway connecting a planned inland dry port at Ma’an with port facilities around Aqaba. The existing 1 050 mm gauge railway to

UK: The Department for Transport has directly awarded incumbent Stagecoach Group subsidiary East Midlands Trains an interim contract to continue to operate the East Midlands passenger franchise. The new short-term contract announced on February 12 will start when the most recent extension of the current franchise expires on March 3 and

THE Prime Minister has insisted that she remains ‘fully committed’ to HS2, after a Channel 4 documentary claimed that ministers are seeking to cancel the project, or at least restrict it to Phase 1, which is the London to Birmingham section. A spokesman at No 10 Downing Street said: ‘The PM

CHINA: An agreement for the construction of the Chaoma inter-city railway was signed by municipal authorities in Hefei and Ma'anshan and the Anhui Province Investment Group on January 27. The 76 km line will start at Chaohu Dong station in Hefei city, pass though Hanshan county and Zhengpugang Xinqu in Ma'anshan

IRELAND: Iarnród Éireann has selected Rhomberg Sersa Rail Group as preferred bidder for a €40m contract to provide track maintenance services, including the operation of 14 on-track machines owned by the national railway. Rhomberg Sersa expects to employ 56 people to undertake work under the contract announced on February 11, which

A DOCUMENTARY will claim this evening that the scrapping of HS2 is now under ‘active consideration’ by ministers, as rising costs continue to threaten the project. It is also being suggested that only Phase 1 might survive, between London and Birmingham. Predictions of a much higher final bill than £56 billion

ASIA: The Asian Development Bank has awarded a US$2m regional technical assistance grant to support the development of railway strategies and institutional capabilities in the Central Asia Regional Economic Co-operation countries. CAREC comprises Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, China, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan and six multilateral institutions. ADB said the

UK: Citing poor customer satisfaction figures, Transport Scotland issued a Remedial Plan notice to ScotRail on February 8. This is the operator’s second warning in quick succession, following a Remedial Notice issued on December 24 because of poor operational performance, during November and December. According to Transport Scotland, ScotRail had failed

CHINA: The Ziyun local freight railway at Zhijiang in Hubei's Yichang region opened on January 18. The 36·7 km line runs from Zhijiang station on the Jiaozuo – Liuzhou line to serve four River Yangtze ports at Yunchi, Baiyang, Tianjiahe and Yaojiagang, and adjacent industrial parks. The line will also connect

UK: The bespoke corrosion-resistant PLUS bolt was developed by screwbolt specialist Excalibur to meet the demanding requirements of the Crossrail project in London. Crossrail Ltd requires anchors used in the tunnel lining to demonstrate a 120-year design life instead of the standard 50-year span of a standard fixing. The twin-helix Excalibur

NORWAY: State-owned rolling stock leasing organisation Norske Tog is to deploy Trimble’s E2M engineering asset and maintenance management system on the fleet of vehicles it is to lease to operating contractors. This is intended to provide the vehicle owner and the operators with an overview of the key data needed to

A new boiler barrel is being built for Hampton & Kempton Waterworks Railway’s (H&KWR) resident steam loco Andrew Barclay 0-4-0ST Darent. The chassis is undergoing overhaul at London Museum of Water & Steam (RM Oct), with the boiler having been sent to A G Bicknell & Co Ltd for assessment and

The Welsh Highland Heritage Railway’s (WHHR) Hunslet 2-6-2T Russell made an historic trip from its Gelert’s Farm base onto Welsh Highland Railway (WHR) metals to steam to Beddgelert on November 25. This was the first time Russell had steamed over the Porthmadog to Beddgelert section of WHR since 1937. Russell hauled replica

The 10¼in-gauge Hastings Miniature Railway (HMR) held its final 70th anniversary event on September 29-30. Two previous visitors (RM Sept, p78) returned for the occasion: Eastleigh Lakeside Railway Guest Engineering 4-4-2 No. 1908 Ernest Henry Upton and Randall & Day-built ‘Schools’ class 4-4-0 No. 905 Tonbridge, from the private Ingfield Light Railway (ILR),

Indian Railways has ordered 1,000 of two types of new diesel locos from American loco builder GE Transportation in an order worth $2.5billion. The first of the 700 4,500hp diesel electric locos, designated ES43ACi by GE and Class WDG4G by Indian Railways, was handed over to Indian Railways in October 2017. The

An extensive tour covering many lines on the South Island of New Zealand was operated in October. A good proportion of the lines have no regular passenger services. The ‘Southern Diesel Tour’ was hauled by preserved English Electric-built locos owned by the Diesel Traction Group: Di 1102 (Co-Co built in 1966

Veteran electric locos have made a comeback on several routes in Germany, replacing modern EMUs, which are out of service because of accident damage or maintenance. Centralbahn’s 110383 on arrival at Nienburg (Weser), having worked the 16:01 from Minden (RE78) on behalf of Eurobahn Keolis Deutschland on Monday 19 November 2018. In

EUROPE: Denmark to Germany rail and road tunnel promoter Femern A/S has formally received a letter providing the Land of Schleswig-Holstein’s approval of the construction plan for the German elements of the project. The legal document runs to more than 1 000 pages, and is based on a 14 000-page application prepared

Updated 10.30 THE RMT has accused South Western Railway of trying to mislead the public over its attitude to on-train staffing. Three new strike dates have been announced on SWR, although strikes on Northern over the same issue have been suspended after talks made progress this week. RMT general secretary Mick Cash said:

UK: The Department for Transport has begun public consultation on the possible roll out of ‘pay-as-you-go’ smart ticketing in the region surrounding Greater London. It is envisaged that this would be more convenient for passengers, and reduce differences in fares paid by people by people with different working and travel

TURKMENISTAN: President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov has signed an order establishing a Ministry of Industry & Communication. This brings together the formerly separate ministries of industry, railways, motor transport and communications, as well as the state’s maritime, river and air transport services. The former ministries are now sector agencies within the new ministry. Tahyrberdi Charyberdiyevich

GERMANY: Deutsche Bahn has unveiled a four-car laboratory train which will be available to the rail sector across Germany for testing digital technologies. Branded the Advanced TrainLab, the train is a former ICE-TD diesel-electric set able to run at 200 km/h. One of the train’s first duties has been to test mobile

HYDROGEN: Although investment in hydrogen-fuelled trains is a ‘vital’ part of the process to improve air quality, it must not be seen as an easy replacement for electrification, according to The Future for Hydrogen Trains in the UK published by the Institution of Mechanical Engineers on February 7. The report considers

USA: Amtrak announced on February 5 that it had reached agreement with the New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority covering two enhancements to passenger services. The first is a long-standing proposal to allow MTA Metro-North to use Amtrak infrastructure to reach Penn Station in Manhattan, while the second envisages investment to

USA: Amtrak announced on February 5 that it had reached agreement with the New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority covering two enhancements to passenger services. The first is a long-standing proposal to allow MTA Metro-North to use Amtrak infrastructure to reach Penn Station in Manhattan, while the second envisages investment to

THE proposed merger between Alstom and Siemens has been called off, after it was blocked by the European Commission. Alstom has described it as ‘a clear set-back for industry in Europe’. The news was broken by the French finance minister Bruno Le Maire earlier today, and has now been confirmed by Alstom

THE proposed merger between Alstom and Siemens has been called off, after it was blocked by the European Commission. Alstom has described it as ‘a clear set-back for industry in Europe’. The news was broken by the French finance minister Bruno Le Maire earlier today, and has now been confirmed by Alstom

UK: The preferred bidders for the Construction Partner contracts to build High Speed 2’s two London stations were announced by project promoter HS2 Ltd on February 6. A joint venture of Mace and Dragados has been selected to undertake the rebuilding of the London Euston terminus, while the Old Oak Common

A GERMAN steam train became stuck in snow 3,675ft up a mountain on January 8 – a very rare and unusual occurrence. Harzer Schmalspurbahnen’s 10.25 from Wernigerode to Brocken, hauled by 2-10-2T No. 99 234 (99 7234) with five carriages, became marooned at the summit station as the weather deteriorated rapidly when

A LIGHT test run for ‘Jubilee’ 4-6-0 No. 45596 Bahamas threw up a couple of unexpected problems on January 17, but also showed why test runs are held. Bahamas was rebuilt at Tyseley using part of a £780,000 Heritage Lottery Fund award, and completed last September. The intervening months have involved resolving any

ELECTRIC stopping trains are now serving Newbury and local stations to Reading, with services provided by GWR. Completion of the electrification work fell behind schedule because of cost and technical issues, and plans to electrify on to Bath and Bristol were abandoned. This means Newbury is now the extent of the electrified

THE incredible success of running ‘Polar Express’ services on the main line between Birmingham Moor Street and Tyseley has led Vintage Trains (VT) to outline an ambitious programme of steam specials and other charter possibilities for 2019.  What is also remarkable is just two months before the ‘Polar Express’ specials started,