THE Regional Transportation Council (RTC) for north-central Texas has allocated $US 4.5m to fund the planning, design, and preliminary engineering for the construction of a high-speed rail link between Dallas and Fort Worth.

GERMAN infrastructure manager DB Networks has purchased a licence from Swiss Federal Railways (SBB) to operate its Rail Control System (RCS) traffic management solution on its 33,000km network from 2019.

TESTING is underway on the new 4.3km Ayacucho light rail line in the Colombian city of Medellin.

THE government of New Zealand has offered a financial lifeline to embattled state-owned railway KiwiRail by committing to a $NZ 200m ($US 130.7m) annual subsidy for the railway.

GERMAN Rail (DB) has appointed Ms Birgit Bohle as CEO of its long-distance passenger subsidiary with effect from September 1.

THE Australian Rail Track Corporation (ARTC) has selected Telstra in a 10-year contract to provide continuing telecommunications services through its NextG network to support ARTC's National Train Communications System (NTCS) for the 8500km Australian freight railway network.

TESTING and commissioning is underway of the first of 18 7.2MW electric locomotives built by CRRC subsidiary Datong Locomotive Works for Belarus Railways (BC).

FULL operations on the long-awaited 17.5km extensions to Nottingham's light rail network commenced on August 25, almost eight months behind schedule.

SEIBU Railway's new series 40,000 trains, which are due to enter service on lines serving Tokyo and its suburbs in spring 2017, will be fitted with propulsion systems supplied by Toshiba after the company won a contract to deliver 24 sets for eight 10-car trains.

RESIDENTS of Mesa, a suburb of Phoenix, Arizona, and Sacramento, California, are celebrating the latest additions to their city's light rail networks which opened on August 22 and 24 respectively.