TRANSNET South Africa today unveiled plans to invest Rand 205bn ($US 25.9bn) in rail projects over the next seven years as part of a drive to triple revenues and support booming mineral exports.

THE Municipality of Amsterdam, the owner of the city's metro network, has awarded Alstom a Euros 100m contract to supply a CBTC solution based on its radio-based Urbalis platform on the network's four existing lines and the new North-South line, which is currently under construction.

HS2, the company overseeing the project to build a high-speed line between London, Birmingham and northern England, has awarded Atkins a £13.3m contract to prepare preliminary designs for the County South section of the line which will run 91km through the counties of Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire and Northamptonshire.

DESPITE a challenging and eventful 2011, marked by a strong Swiss franc, fluctuations in freight volumes and problems with infrastructure bottlenecks, especially on Switzerland's Lötschberg route, BLS Cargo says its annual results released on April 4 show that it has almost recovered from the economic crisis of 2009.

GERMAN Rail (DB) subsidiary DB Regio NRW has placed orders worth a total of Euros 215m with two manufacturers for 42 emus, which will operate suburban and regional services in the state of the North Rhine-Westphalia.

SWISS Federal Railways (SBB) recorded a net profit of SFr 338.7m ($US 378.3m) last year, a 13.5% increase on 2010. Revenues were up by 3.4% to SFr 8bn, while Ebit was up 24.2% to SFr 529.7m. These positive results were recorded despite a 26.9% drop in passenger traffic revenues to SFr 213.9m, although passenger numbers increased by 2.7% to 356.6 million.