THE president of the Italian region of Tuscany Mr Enrico Rossi announced on March 2 that the regional government has secured a €200m loan to finance track-doubling on the 44km Pistoia – Lucca line, which is used by around 50 trains a day.

OMAN Rail has received bids from 11 consortia for the civil works contract for the first phase of its railway network, a 207km link from Sohar to Buraimi on the UAE border in the north of the sultanate, which makes up Oman's section of the GCC railway network.

STOCKHOLM Local Transport (SL) and Bombardier unveiled artist's impressions of the forthcoming C30 train for the city's metro network at the EurasiaRail exhibition in Istanbul on March 5.

BELGIAN railfreight operator SNCB Logistics has launched a new fast wagonload service linking Belgium with Switzerland, cutting transit times from a week to 4.5 days.

AN agreement to develop plans for an intermodal rail terminal to serve fresh food and flower producers in the Westland agricultural area near Rotterdam was signed at the Fruit Logistica 2015 exhibition in Berlin last month.

NORTHERN Rail began operating electric services between Manchester and Liverpool on March 5, marking the completion of the second phase of Network Rail's North West electrification programme.

SIX major players in the rail industry came together in Utrecht on March 4 to launch Railsponsible, a new international procurement initiative which aims to achieve improvements in sustainability throughout the supply chain.

TRAMS are set to return to Shanghai city centre for the first time in more than 40 years as part of a three-year development plan for publically-owned land along the city's riverfront, which was unveiled by the municipal government on February 25.

THE president of Alstom Transport, Mr Henri Poupart-Lafarge, inaugurated the company's new €15m Citadis LRV production line at Taubaté in the Brazilian state of São Paulo on March 3.

THE board of directors of Italian State Railways (FS) approved a proposal on February 25 to issue one or more loan stocks through a Euro Medium Term Note (EMTN) on the Dublin stock exchange.