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AT LEAST three, and as many as six, bids are thought to have been submitted for a 30-year franchise to operate Britain's 108km High Speed 1 rail link between London St Pancras and the Channel Tunnel.

TRANSPORT for London (TfL) has ended its Prestige public finance initiative (PFI) contract with the TranSys consortium of Cubic Transportation Systems and HP Enterprise Services and replaced it with a conventional contract with Cubic.

CHENNAI Metro Rail has chosen Alstom to supply a fleet of 42 four-car trains at a cost of Rs 14.7 billion ($US 316.8 million). Each set will accommodate 1276 passengers with first-class sections in the driving cars. The stainless-steel trains will have inter-car gangways, air-conditioning, electronic maps, public address, and CCTV.

STATE Railway of Thailand (SRT) plans to start work this year on 11 rail projects worth Baht 87.5 billion ($US 2.7 billion), following provisional approval by the Thai government. The Ministry of Transport is studying another 10 projects worth a further Baht 98 billion.

THE Denver Transit Partners (DTP) consortium led by Fluor has concluded the financing of a $US 2 billion public-private partnership project to design, build, finance and operate a 58km commuter rail network in Denver. The six-year design and build phase will cost $US 1 billion, with ground breaking scheduled for August 26. The 29-year operation and maintenance contract is worth a further $US 1 billion. A contract for the second phase of the project is expected to be let next year.

THE European Commission (EC) has approved the takeover of British transport operator Arriva by German Rail (DB) after an investigation concluded the deal would have no negative impact on competition. The Euros 1.9 billion transaction, which will be completed on August 27, is the largest acquisition ever made by DB and creates one of Europe's leading transport groups.

WARREN Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway says the acquisition of US Class 1 railway BNSF helped to boost earnings by 52% in the first half of this year, compared with the same period in 2009.

FREIGHT traffic in Russia has risen consistently in the first seven months of 2010 according to the latest figures from Russian Railways (RZD), which show volumes reached 688.1 million tonnes between January and July, an 11.3% increase over the same period last year.

GREATER Manchester Passenger Executive (GMPTE) has appointed the MPact-Thales consortium to design and build and maintain the Phase 3B extensions of the Metrolink light rail network.