Keith Fender

GERMAN Rail (DB) has admitted its plans to launch ICE high-speed services from London to Cologne and Frankfurt are now seriously delayed, and the service is unlikely to be launched before the end of the decade.

SIEMENS, together with Britain's Department for Transport (DfT), rolling stock leasing company Cross London Trains (CLT), and current Thameslink franchisee First Capital Connect (FCC), presented the full-scale mock-up of the new Desiro City emu for Thameslink services at London's ExCeL exhibition centre on January 28.

DB Networks and local authorities in Bavaria are set to begin planning work for the electrification the 147km line from Munich East to Mühldorf and Freilassing.

GREECE'S Hellenic Republic Asset Development Fund (HRADF) announced on October 31 that three bids for the sale of national train operating company Trainose have qualified for the final stage of the privatisation process.

MVG, the operator of the tram network in the German city of Mainz, has received planning permission for the 9.2km extension of its network southwest from Main Station to Lerchenberg Hindemithstrasse.

GERMAN Rail (DB) subsidiary DB Regio is to take on the operation of the Mid-German S-Bahn Network Lot 2 concession after the winning bidder Abellio decided to withdraw from the contract with the states of Saxony Anhalt and Brandenburg and Leipzig area transport authority ZVNL.

THE government of Argentina has placed an order with China Northern Rolling Stock (CNR) for 27 three-car metre gauge dmus, which will be used on commuter services on the metre-gauge Belgrano Sur network in Buenos Aires.

POLISH State Railways' (PKP) freight business PKP Cargo is to be part-privatised through an Initial Public Offering (IPO) on the Warsaw stock exchange.

THE first of seven Velaro high-speed trains ordered by Turkish State Railways (TCDD) from Siemens is currently en route to Turkey.

GERMANY's Niederbarnimer Railway (NEB) has ordered nine Pesa Link dmus for €27m which it will operate on services from Berlin to Templin, Werneuchen and Kostrzyn, Poland, beginning in December 2015.