International Railway Journal Headlines. 27th January 2012

Good year for SNCF TURNOVER at French National Railways (SNCF) was up by 7.2% at Euros 32.65bn in 2011 compared with Euros 30.47bn in 2010, with particularly strong performance in the railway's passenger sectors.

Dijon celebrates arrival of first LRV THE city of Dijon celebrated the arrival of its first Alstom Citadis LRV at its new operating and maintenance centre on January 26. Testing of the vehicle will commence in February on the 8.5km Line T1 and 11.5km Line T2, which serve 16 and 21 stations respectively in the Greater Dijon area. Commercial operations on the new network are scheduled to begin in September. Record year for CSX CSX reported record performance in revenue, operating income, operating ratio, and earnings per share during 2011 in its annual results announced today. Revenue was up by 10% to $US 11.7bn, operating income by 11% to $US 3.4bn, operating ratio improved to 71.5%, and earnings per share was up by 24% to $US 1.67. Ansaldo STS signalling for UAE's first railway ANSALDO STS today confirmed it has been awarded the contract to supply signalling, automation, and telecommunications systems for the first phase of the UAE's planned railway network. GE Transportation reports profit surge for 2011 REVENUE for GE Transportation soared by 45% last year to $US 4.9bn compared with 2010, while profits for the year more than doubled from $US 315m in 2010 to $US 757m. CP to invest $C 1.2bn this year CANADIAN Pacific Railway today announced it will invest between $C 1.1bn ($US 1.08bn) and $C 1.2bn on infrastructure renewal, network enhancements and expansion projects in 2012 as part of its multi-year plan, which aims to improve service and increase network capacity while funding business development and initiatives with a rapid return on investment. DB restructures long-distance services GERMAN Rail (DB) is to transfer some inter-city services to a new subsidiary in a move that is likely to boost the profitability of its long-distance passenger unit. DB Transport will be part of DB Regio and will take over inter-city routes 35 (Cologne - Norddeich Mole), 55 (Cologne - Leipzig) and 56 (Norddeich Mole - Dresden). These are former InterRegio services, which were upgraded to Intercity status when the InterRegio network was broken up in 2003. Croatia’s first ERTMS line begins operations COMMERCIAL operations have begun on the first line in Croatia to be equipped with ERTMS. Network Rail announces signalling framework agreements BRITISH infrastructure manager Network Rail (NR) has announced framework agreements worth approximately £1.5bn for railway signalling projects over the next seven years.   RFF announces preferred bidder for Nîmes- FRENCH infrastructure manager French Rail Network (RFF) has selected a consortium led by Bouygues as its preferred bidder for the contract to build the Euros 1.4bn Nîmes-Montpelier bypass. New South Africa - Swaziland rail link to go ahead TRANSNET and Swazi Rail (SR) signed an agreement this morning to build a new railway between South Africa's Mpumalanga province and western Swaziland in a move that will relieve the congested Richards Bay heavy-haul line and give Swaziland direct rail access to Johannesburg and Pretoria. Adif awards Albacete - Alicante signalling contract SPANISH infrastructure manager Adif has awarded a 20-year supply-install-commission-maintain signalling contract for the Albacete - Alicante high-speed line to a consortium of Alstom, Comsa Emte, Isolux Concesiones, and CAF. The contract is worth around Euros 280m, of which Alstom has a Euros 110m share. British government approves London - Birmingham high-speed line BRITAIN'S Secretary of State for Transport Mrs Justine Greening has approved the construction of the first phase of a Y-shaped high-speed network linking London with central and northern England, following the completion of a national public consultation which attracted nearly 55,000 responses.