CASA Transport has awarded Yapi Merkezi, Turkey, a €83m contract to construct the 14.6km Line 2 of the Casablanca light rail network following an international tender in which four other groups participated.

BRAUNSCHWEIG Transport (BSVAG) has issued a tender for nine LRVs for delivery by 2019 to be funded largely by the state of Lower Saxony.

IRJ at WCRR 2016, Milan: Leading Italian railway officials have called on the railway industry to better promote its sustainable credentials in order for rail to secure its place as the backbone of transport in the future.

THE first of 26 LRVs of two types being built by Stadler for Aarhus Letbanen, Denmark, has been completed and will arrive in Denmark for testing at the end of the summer.

MR Oleg Valinskiy, vice-president of Russian Railway (RZD), says that RZD will complete the modernisation of the 1067mm-gauge railway on Sakhalin island and its conversion to 1520mm gauge in 2018.

THE Chinese city of Dongguan, which has a population of 8.2 million, started trial operation on its first metro line on May 27 following the approval of the municipal government.

THE opening of an extension of the Wolverhampton - Birmingham Midland Metro light rail line to Birmingham New Street station finally took place on May 30 following track remedial works which had forced the postponement of the original opening scheduled for May 22.

FEMERN, the organisation responsible for constructing the 18km Fehmarn Belt road-rail tunnel between Rødby, Denmark, and Puttgarden, Germany, has signed four major construction contracts worth almost DKr 30bn ($US 4.5bn) to two consortia.

THE design and internal layout for the fleet of MP14 rubber-tyred metro trains which Alstom is building for Paris Transport Authority (RATP) was unveiled at Alstom's Paris headquarters by the company's chairman and CEO Mr Henri Poupart-Lafarge.