AUBAGNE, a town of 46,000 inhabitants situated east of Marseille, inaugurated its first light rail line on September 1.
ROLLING stock leasor Eversholt Rail has awarded Alstom a £36.1m contract to refurbish its 40 class 334 EMUs operated by First ScotRail on services between Glasgow and Edinburgh via Bathgate.
THE French city of Besançon celebrated the inauguration of its first light rail line on August 30 with two days of festivities marking the completion of what is hailed by the city as the "lowest-cost tram line in France."
SWISS Federal Railways has awarded ABB Switzerland a contract worth around SFr 69.2m ($US 75.4m) to supply new traction equipment for its fleet of 119 Re460 electric locomotives as part of a SFr 230m mid-life refurbishment programme.
THE second light rail line in the French city of Le Mans was inaugurated on August 30 by the city's mayor Mr Jean-Claude Boulard, and member of parliament for Le Mans Mr Stéphane le Foll.
GERMAN Rail (DB) and French National Railways (SNCF) marked a milestone for international high-speed services between Germany and France on August 29, when they carried their 10 millionth passenger on their ICE and TGV services from Stuttgart and Frankfurt to Paris.
OPTIONS for improving high-speed rail links to Italy's most important airports will be examined in more detail following the signing of an agreement between Italian State Railways (FS) and the Italian Ministry of Transport on August 26.
THE consortium building the second metro line in Warsaw has confirmed that construction is now 95% complete and works are on course for the handover of the line to Warsaw Metro next month.
FINLAND's national train operator VR Group has reported increased profits for the second quarter but while there was growth in the freight business passenger traffic declined.
With ERTMS set to be rolled out on some of Britain's busiest main lines over the next five years, testing and validation is now well underway in preparation for large-scale deployment. Keith Barrow visits Network Rail's ETCS National Integration Facility to see how the infrastructure manager is preparing for the transition.