THE Ethiopian government has concluded a $US 865m financing agreement which will fund the construction of the 389km electrified standard-gauge line from Awash on the Addis Ababa – Djibouti line to Weldia in the north of the country.

SOUTH African locomotive builder Grindrod has unveiled a new Cape Gauge shunting and short-trip locomotive which it hopes will find a ready market among rail operators looking for affordable replacements for ageing second-hand units.

A Nairobi High Court has halted the $US 3.6bn project to build a standard-gauge railway linking Nairobi with Mombasa due to a dispute over compensation for land acquisition.

TRANSNET Engineering has begun assembling a third batch of 91 1067mm-gauge GE type C30ACi diesel-electric locomotives for Transnet Freight Rail (TFR) at its Koedoespoort workshops near Pretoria.

YAPI Merkezi, Turkey, which is constructing a $US 1.7bn railway in Ethiopia, has awarded Bombardier a €36m contract to install ERTMS.

SWAZILAND Railway - one of Africa's smallest state-owned rail networks - celebrated its 50th birthday on Friday by finally getting its own locomotives and wagons.

NIGERIA's militant Islamist Boko Haram insurgency, which has wreaked havoc across the country through bombings, assassinations and abductions, is threatening to delay the completion of the $US 427m Port Harcourt - Maiduguri railway rehabilitation project.

Vossloh will unveil at InnoTrans a full-scale model of its innovative dual-mode locomotive, the EuroDual. It will also exhibit a rejuvenated LRV for Bonn to demonstrate its vehicle refurbishing skills, as David Briginshaw discovers.

TRANSNET Rail Engineering (TRE) has begun assembling class 20E electric locomotives for Transnet Freight Rail at its Koedoespoort facility near Pretoria following the delivery of the first batch of 10 units from China.

RIFT Valley Railways has taken delivery of its first batch of former GE B23-7 diesel locomotives which have been rebuilt by NRE as C23-7 units equipped with NRE's NForce control and concluded a $US 20m financing deal for the fleet of 20 units.