RAILROAD Development Corporation (RDC) has lost its appeal at the Administrative Court in Cologne against the Federal Networks Agency's decision to prevent DB Networks signing draft agreements for train paths for RDC's proposed motor-rail services between Niebüll and Westerland on the island of Sylt.

PLANS for open-access car-carrying trains serving the island of Sylt in northern Germany have suffered a setback after the Federal Networks Agency instructed infrastructure manager DB Networks not to sign draft agreements with the German subsidiary of Railroad Development Corporation (RDC), United States, for train paths on the route.

GERMANY's infrastructure manager, DB Networks, has informed open-access intercity operator Hamburg-Köln-Express (HKX) that it can only have three of the six paths it requested for a new service from Bonn to Berlin, which would make the service unviable.

THE government of the German state of North Rhine Westphalia has signed three financing and implementation agreements with Rhineland Transport Authority (NVR) and German Rail (DB) for the long-planned extension of Rhine-Ruhr S-Bahn Line S13 from Troisdorf to Bonn Oberkassel.

THE installation of ERTMS on the Betuweroute dedicated freight line between the port of Rotterdam and the German border was finally completed on December 8, when the section between Zevenaar, Netherlands, and Emmerich, Germany, switched to ETCS from the legacy Dutch ATB train protection system.

GERMAN Rail (DB) board member for infrastructure and services Dr Volker Kefer has unveiled details of plans to spend a minimum of €28bn over the next four years on maintenance and investment in Germany's mainline rail network.

VEOLIA Transport has sent an open letter to German federal transport minister Mr Alexander Dobrindt calling for the end of discrimination against rail in the German transport market, particularly in the long-distance arena, where trains have faced an onslaught from cheaper buses since the liberalisation of the German bus market in January 2013.

GERMAN infrastructure manager DB Networks has issued a tender notice for a contract to reinstate the German section of the short cross-border link between Selb, Germany, and Aš in the Czech Republic.

VEOLIA's German public transport subsidiary Veolia Verkehr announced on October 14 that its Ostseeland Verkehr business unit will cease operation of its Leipzig – Berlin – Rostock/Warnemünde InterConnex long-distance passenger services, blaming high infrastructure charges and competititon from Germany's recently-liberalised inter-city bus market for the withdrawal.

A letter of intent to construct a new line in the German state of Schleswig-Holstein to connect with the Fehmarn Belt fixed link to Denmark has been signed by Schleswig-Holstein's minister of economy, labour, transport and technology, Mr Reinhard Meyer, and German Rail (DB) Networks' CEO Mr Frank Sennhenn.