Over the summer, we had an intern join us in our London office to help us crystalize our vision around the future of the rail industry, over the course of the next decade.  Abigail Carlson, is now in her final year of studying for a degree in International Relations from the London School of Economics, and she did some great research on trends in the rail ticketing market, the planned high-speed rail routes across the globe, and also, the future of trains themselves.  Below is part 1 of a 2-part series on what passengers can expect as train technology moves into the 21st (and 22nd) century.

Thanks again Abigail!  Excellent work.

In about 10 days, the SilverRail team are going to be descending on Rome to participate in the ACTE (Association of Corporate Travel Executives) Global Education Conference.

 China is by far the worlds leading country when it comes to High Speed Rail, with over 13,000km of track.  That number has increased today with the launch of a new line between Zhengzhou and Wuhan that has trains travelling at 350kph.  To read more about this new development, click here.

Within the services section, an article that helps to overview what we are doing here at SilverRail was featured.  To see it live online, you can go here, and go to page 195.  Or you can see a pdf of the article here

Last month we heard from the New York Times about the convenience of travelling by train in the USA.  This month it is the turn of Fred Mawer of the Daily Mail who recounts his memories of a recent relaxing rail trip from London to Amsterdam and talks of the contrasting factors of air travel.

Below is a recount of Mike and Keith's ride on the Pan Mass Challenge that took place a couple of weekends ago. 

Certainly at SilverRail, we're very proud to have people like Mike and Keith on our team, puting the effort in to support causes such as this.  Congratulations to you both, and all the other riders in the Pan Mass Challenge.  You can still support their efforts on the PMC website.

 In yesterday's New York Times, Ron Nixon wrote about the trend that we have been echoing for as long as we've been in business: the increasing stresses of air travel, combined with the convenience and accessibility of rail travel is pushing consumers to choose rail over air - in this example, particularly in the North East Corridor.

In the last couple of weeks, there have been some big developments in the high speed rail world that we are keeping an eye on here at SilverRail.  I have to admit that we take these pieces of news with a grain of salt, as there are often a number of twists in the road, but hopefully headed in the positive direction.

On August 4th and 5th, two members of the SilverRail engineering team will be riding 192 miles as part of the Pan Mass Challenge, a two-day bike ride to support the Dana-Farber Insitute and the Jimmy Fund.

At SilverRail, we are proud to support their athletic and charitable pursuits as they take on this huge endeavour.

With the recent launch of NTV in Italy, a new interest is being shown in the European rail market.  NTV, with the brand name Italo has launched the first privately funded high-speed rail line in Europe.  Also known as the "Ferrari Train" due to the key ownership position of Luca di Montezemolo, the Chairman of Ferrari, the launch is big news in the train world.