International News from Railways Illustrated

German 185 deliveries complete

On September 29 185399 was officially handed over by Bombardier at Kassel to DB Schenker. The class has been in production for around ten years. The original order was for 400 locos although one loco ended up being delivered to DB Regio as 146228.
An extra bodyshell was produced as a replacement for 185055 which was severely damaged after one year in traffic. Six further locos were built additionally for the DB/Green Cargo (185401-406), but these were not part of the main initial order.

Austrian line closures

On December 11 many ÖBB lines will close; all scheduled passenger trains are currently DMUs. The lines affected are Groß Schweinbarth-Sulz Museumsdorf (912); Schwarzenau-Zwettl Stadt (830); Schwarzenau-Waidhofen an der Thaya (831); Schrambach-Markt St-Aegyd am Neuwalde (113); Ober Grafendorf-Mank (115); Scheibbs-Kienberg-Gaming (120); Krems an der Donau-Emmersdorf an der Donau (811) will be closed for regular passenger services on December 11 but will reopen at the end of April 2011 for tourist services operated by NOVÖG.

Pinzgauer Lokalbahn return to Krimml

Pinzgauer Lokalbahn services returned to Krimml on September 12, the day after a track laying completion ceremony marked the restoration of the 760mm gauge line which had been damaged by serious flooding in June 2005.
The future of the line beyond Mittersill had been in doubt, but the Land of Salzburg took it over from ÖBB, and awarded an operating contract to Salzburger Lokalbahn, investing €32·3m on rehabilitation and rolling stock. The final 24km of the line beyond Mittersill had been closed since 2005; visitors then having to travel by road the remainder of the way to the falls.
The 11km section to Bramburg reopened on December 13 2009. A reopening ceremony was held on September 11 with the director of the railway in attendance. The line then opened to Krimml with the start of the new timetable on September 12, the end to end journey is just 1hr 28min.
There is a daily hourly service over the full length of the line from 0600-2000, operated by comfortable 5090 class single railcars (often in multiple), or two coach trains hauled by modern D75 BB-SEE class diesels in push-pull format. These are supplemented on weekdays by further trains operating as far as Mittersill, the main town in the valley.
Additionally on Sundays from June to the end of September there are two nostalgic services, one steam-hauled using loco Mh.3 and the other by one of two class 2095 diesels. At present an ÖBB Postbus service meets trains at Krimml Station and takes visitors to the falls, although there is an ambitious €60m project under consideration to extend the railway all the way to the popular attraction.

Freightliner livery in Australia

The Australian CFCLA company (Chicago Freight Car Leasing Australia) has leased three class GL locomotives to Freightliner in New South Wales. Initially GL102/103/112 were on lease, but recently GL111 has replaced one loco, it has been repainted into the new Freightliner livery, now familiar in the UK.
The GLs were rebuilt for CFCLA by United Goninan at its Broadmeadow plant in Newcastle NSW from the frames of the ALCO-engined 442 class locos built in the early 1970s for NSW government Railways, the frame from 44232 was used as the base for GL111. The class are designated model CM30-Mmi and are fitted with second hand GE 7-FDL-12 engines developing 3,300hp (2,460kW).
Since Freightliner started operating in NSW Australia it has been operating containerised cotton trains and some works trains. Freightliner also supplies crews to operate Xstrata Coal trains from several Hunter Valley mines to the Port of Newcastle.

Bombardier awarded Italian high speed contract

Bombardier Transportation has signed a contract with Trenitalia (Italian Railways) for the delivery of 50 very high speed trainsets V300ZEFIRO, a model of the Bombardier Zefiro high speed trains family.
The V300ZEFIRO (known as ETR 1000 in Italy) is developed in partnership with AnsaldoBreda, a subsidiary of the Finmeccanica group of Italy. The total contract is valued at €1.54bn. The V300ZEFIRO has a capacity for 600 passengers and is capable of commercial speeds of up to 360 km/h.
Its unusually high acceleration enables the train to ensure excellent travel times even on winding routes. It is fully interoperable and will provide cross-border services, taking Trenitalia’s passengers to other European countries without the need for changing trains.