Australian leasing company Rail First Asset Management has taken delivery of a C44 diesel locomotive for intermodal freight traffic manufactured by UGL with a Wabtec FDL engine. UGL and Rail First recently signed more than A$100m in multi-year agreements as part of its long term fleet growth plan. It plans to take delivery of four locomotives in 2022, and a minimum of 12 more over the next two years with further orders also expected.
South Korea’s Korail has operated a trial 777 m long, 50-wagon container train which covered the 402 km Gyeongbu Line from Seoul to Busan in 6 h. Regular commercial operation is planned by H1 2023. The operator said its freight business is currently facing an operating loss of more than 200bn won per year, and the longer train would improve efficiency by providing a 52% increase in capacity. Its ultimate aim is to be able to operate 64 wagon trains.
The Tanzania-Zambia Railway Authority board has approved a budget for the 2022-23 financial year including 450 000 tonnes of freight and 3·4 million passengers, with projected revenues of US$34·3m from freight and passenger services, and US$10·5m from non-traffic revenues including current open access operations. Projected total operating expenditure is US$51·3m.
Developer Espacios Económicos Empresariales has awarded a joint venture of Ardanuy Ingeniería, TRN and Civis a €1·4m contract to produce detailed designs for a dual-gauge container, swap body and rolling motorway terminal able to handle 750 m long trains at Sagunt to the north of Valencia. The existing designs need to be modified to take into account the construction of a vehicle battery factory.
TransContainer has launched twice-monthly rail, sea and road service from Russia to Mersin in Turkey via the Delo Group’s NUTEP terminal at the Russian Black Sea port of Novorossiysk.
Flex Bahndienstleistungen is to lease a Stadler EuroDual locomotive from European Loc Pool from June 2023.
Sinara Transport Machines’ Remputmash division has produced 10 PM-820 demountable equipment platform wagons for Russian mining and metallurgical company Nornickel.
The American Short Line & Regional Railroad Association says the proposed US Freight Rail Shipping Fair Market Act contains ’a myriad of mandates and dramatic government interventions into the marketplace that would harm the overall strength and viability of the freight rail business over time and disrupt short line railroads’ ability to serve their customers’. As such ASLRRA does not support the legislation as introduced.
Responding to European Commission proposals to revise rules on state aid for sustainable modes of freight transport, the International Union for Road-Rail Combined Transport said price signals are more powerful than state aid; state aid should not be limited to financial transfers, as valuable means of non-financial aid exist such as the legal equivalence between a combined transport operation and road haulage; state aid should only be reduced in proportion with improvements in the regulatory framework; and that multimodal and intermodal are not synonyms, with intermodal being based on transhipment of loading units (such as containers), while multimodal means two or more modes collaborating.
ÖBB Rail Cargo Group has launched a TransFER service from Giengen in eastern Baden-Württemberg in Germany to Cerkezköy, 80 km west of Istanbul, with a transit time fo seven days and connections to other terminals in western Europe and Turkey. It has also launched services from Bratislava to Istanbul and to Köseköy via the Marmaray Tunnel.
Istmo Energy has begun commercial operations at the Pecos-East Rail Terminal in Texas which it acquired in 2021, with the West Terminal to follow soon. Operations are handled by GHMR. ‘The strategic location of Istmo’s rail facilities provide an effective fuel and frack sand supply alternative to support the completion activities of operators in our part of the Delaware Basin. At a time of mounting supply chain costs, constraints, and transport challenges, our terminals provide a cost-effective alternative to supply all drilling operations needs from fuels to proppant sand to drilling fluids’, said CEO Alex Gutierrez.