CZECH REPUBLIC: Škoda Group has acquired 100% of the shares of tram, metro and trolleybus electrical component supplier Cegelec from Vinci Energies. Cegelec will operate under the name Electric Components as part of the Škoda Electric business.

The Philippine Railways Institute in the Manila area is training staff to support the expansion of the city’s rail network. But as PRI Managing Director Anneli Lontoc explains to Benjámin Zelki, there are wider ambitions for the centre to become a training hub for the Asia Pacific region.

UK: Network Rail has appointed 15 contractors to its Eastern Routes Partnership framework, which is designed to enable it to directly award key infrastructure contracts worth £3·5bn during Control Period 7, with the option to extend for CP8.

News from the world rail freight market.

USA: Railmark Industrial Railway is to take over operation of an 18 km freight branch in Tishomingo County, Mississippi, which interchanges with Norfolk Southern and the Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway.

AUSTRALIA: SCT Logistics has signed a multi-year agreement to use Trapeze Group’s Rail Workforce Management software to automate a range of complex staff and fleet resource allocation processes.