THE first of seven 730ML DMUs being supplied by Pesa, Poland, to Lithuanian Railways (LG) entered service on the 376km Vilnius - Klaipeda route on June 9.

JAMAICA's minister of transport and works Mr Michael Henry told the House of Representatives on June 8 that the government is holding discussions with Herzog, United States, regarding the possibility of establishing a public-private partnership (PPP) to resurrect part of the island's railway network.

ANTIN Infrastructures in a joint venture with Icamap and Borletti Group has offered €953m to acquire Grandi Stazioni Retail from Italian State Railways (FS) and Eurostazioni, which FS says is the best of the four offers it has received.

STADLER Pankow presented the first Flirt 3 regional EMU for the Dutch-German Lower Rhine Network to operator Abellio Rail NRW and Rhine-Ruhr transport authority VRR in a ceremony at Abellio's Hagen depot on June 9.

THE Pakistan government has approved a $US 8.2bn project to upgrade the 1872km Karachi - Peshawar main line by 2021, 85% of which will be funded by a concessionary loan from China the terms of which will now be negotiated.

THE European Parliament (EP) has adopted a resolution aimed at improving the competitiveness of the European railway supply industry in the face of what it regards as aggressive competition from Asia.

TRANSPORT for London (TfL) and Twitter have initiated a pilot to offer automatic alerts to passengers in the event of severe delays on London Underground and TfL rail services.

A full-size mock-up of a Metropolis train for lines 4, 5 and 6 of the Riyadh metro was presented in the Saudi capital by Alstom on June 8 to the governor of Riyadh, Prince Faisal bin Bandar bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, and the transport minister HE Suleiman Al Hamdan.

POWERLINES Group, Austria, has been awarded a contract by CCE Elektrik, Turkey, to supply overhead catenary components for electrification of new light rail lines in the Turkish cities of Izmir and Izmit.

FIRST Group announced on June 8 that its subsidiary Great Western Railway has finaised an agreement with Porterbrook Leasing to lease 37 new four-car Bombardier class 387 Electrostar EMUs, in addition to the eight sets already on order.