Angola: ÅF Group's SwedeRail business has been appointed to provide the National Railway Institute with technical assistance for the restructuring of railway legislation.

Australia: Union Switch & Signal has won a contract to supply signalling and other asset protection systems for the Lang Hancock Railway in Western Australia. The remote 50 km line will serve a mine being developed by a joint venture of Rio Tinto Iron Ore and Hancock Prospecting.

QR has awarded Westinghouse Rail Systems a contract to undertake a series of capacity improvement works on the Blackwater network which is heavily used by coal trains.

Cambodia: Last month Vietnam Railways began delivering the first of 100 wagons it is supplying to Royal Cambodian Railways using Vietnamese government credit.

China: On February 12 Dalian Loco Works and Bombardier announced a €1·1bn contract to supply 500 electric freight locos to the Ministry of Railways in 2009-11. Based on a design Bombardier supplied to LKAB for its Kiruna iron ore operations in Sweden, the 120 km/h 9·6 MW locos will have Mitrac propulsion and controls.

Israeli firm NICE Systems and Smarton Technology have won a contract to supply real-time distributed digital video content analysis equipment to monitor the security of tracks and stations in Tibet.

Europe: Eurotunnel has bought five Brush Class 92 locomotives from Eurostar for £2m. The 5 MW multi-voltage locos built in 1993-96 will be used to develop international freight subsidiary Europorte 2.

France: Funded by four regions, SNCF has placed a €322m order with Alstom for 39 three-car and 12 four-car Coradia Duplex TER 2N NG double-deck EMUs. Bombardier will supply power bogies and work on 63 of the 165 cars, due for delivery in 2008-10.

Veolia Cargo has exercised an option worth around €30m for 10 Alstom Prima triple-voltage electric locos for delivery in 2008, with eight years of maintenance. The first four of seven locos ordered in the original October 2005 contract were delivered in January for use on services to Germany.

Germany: Leasing company Angel Trains Cargo has placed a €48m order for 19 diesel locos of various types with Kiel-based Vossloh Locomotives GmbH. Deliveries will run throughout 2007, and the locos will be leased to operators in France, Germany, Belgium, Italy and the Netherlands.

DB ProjektBau has awarded Pöyry's Infrastructure & Environment business two contracts totalling €3m for work in Berlin. These cover technical reviews of the proposed rail link to Berlin Brandenburg International Airport, rebuilding of Ostkreuz and the construction of a tunnel connected to the northern ring line, plus the preparation of agreements with third parties for work on those projects.

Romania: In mid-January the government signed contracts totalling €275m for upgrading work on the section of pan-European Corridor IV between Fundulea and Fetesti. Astaldi will undertake infrastructure modernisation, Siemens is part of a consortium chosen for signalling work, a Greek consortium will modernise stations, and Powerlines will upgrade the overhead electrification.

In January EMD announced that its Class 66 family of diesel locos had been certified to run in Romania.

Spain: FEVE has awarded FCC Construcción a €3·3m contract to carry out platform modifications and other works at Virxe do Mar and Santa Icía in preparation for the doubling of the Ferrol - Xuvia route to accommodate more suburban services.

Renfe has called tenders for the construction of a high speed train maintenance facility at Can Tunis in Barcelona, including a 18 900 m2 workshop building with three tracks under cover. A budget of €45m has been set and the work is to be completed within 18 months.

Sweden: Hector Rail has ordered 10 Bombardier Traxx F140AC locos, with options for a further 10. To be delivered in 2008-09, the 5·6 MW 140 km/h locos will be equipped to work cross-border trains between Sweden, Denmark and Germany.

Turkey: On January 15 TCDD signed a YTL74·9m contract with a consortium of Net Yapi and Gülcubuk Insaat for civil works on the first 100 km of the 250 km/h Ankara - Konya fast line. A YTL84·3m contract had previously been awarded to Mustafa Özcan and Oztas for the second section.

UK: On January 26 and February 6 Network Rail awarded a series of five-year framework contracts under which contracts for signalling projects worth up to £300m can be awarded to Carillion (South Thames), Jarvis (North East), May Gurney (North Thames), Amey (West) and First Engineering (North West and Scotland).

Through the Depco consortium, the Department for Transport has awarded Emcor Infrastructure & Rail Services two contracts totalling £13m for work on the redevelopment of depots at Ashford and Ramsgate. A new £53m facility in Ashford will maintain the Hitachi trains being built for Channel Tunnel Rail Link domestic services, while the Ramsgate site will be enhanced to maintain existing stock.

Eurostar has awarded Sydac a contract worth more than £0·5m to upgrade its driver training simulator, as 240 drivers must be trained ready for the opening of CTRL Section 2 on November 14.

USA: Ulster County Transportation Council in New York State has appointed Systra to plan a real-time train detection system. This would alert emergency services before CSX trains up to 1·5 km long arrive at level crossings, allowing response vehicle crews to plan alternative routes. Equipment cannot be installed on CSX trains or property, ruling out conventional track circuiting.

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