SIEMENS presented the first set of Railjet long-distance coaches for Czech Railways (CD) to the press at its Simmering facility in Vienna on February 12.

LINZ Linien, Austria, has awarded a €19m contract to Bombardier for six Flexity LRVs to be delivered in mid-2015 for operation on an extension to Traun in the southwest of the city.

AUSTRIAN local railway operator Stern & Hafferl (StH) has awarded Vossloh a €30m contract to supply 11 metre-gauge Tramlink V3 LRVs.

HUNGARY's Györ-Sopron-Ebenfurth Railway (GySEV) has awarded Siemens a €30.7m contract to supply five Desiro ML emus for regional services between Hungary and Austria.

A CEREMONY was held near St Paul in the Austrian province of Carinthia on January 17 to mark the start of construction on the third and final section of the 32.9km Koralm tunnel, the centrepiece of the new 133km Koralm Line between Graz and Klagenfurt.

FOLLOWING a period of preparatory works, main construction began on Austria's 27.3km Semmering Base Tunnel on January 7.

SPEAKING at a track seminar organised by Plasser & Theurer in London recently, Mr Wolfgang Nemetz of ÖBB Infrastructure, explained that ÖBB's efficiency programme, which was launched in 2008, is aimed at cutting new construction, renewal and maintenance infrastructure costs by €1256m or 118% by 2018. 

GERMAN Rail's (DB) long-distance passenger division, DB Fernverkehr, has issued a call for tenders to fit European Train Control System (ETCS) to its ICE1 fleet of high-speed trains.

ÖBB Infrastructure has awarded a three-month proof of concept contract to OptaSense, Britain, to trial its Distributed Acoustic Sensing system in the Vienna area.

THE supervisory board of Czech Railways (CD) has approved the purchase up to 80 long-distance coaches from Austrian Federal Railways (ÖBB) in a deal worth up to CKr 413m ($US 20.5m).