SERVICES on the first metro line in the Peruvian capital Lima reached the northwestern suburb of San Juan de Lurigancho on July 26 with the opening of the 12.4km second phase from Miguel Grau to Bayóvar.

CHICAGO Transit Authority (CTA) has announced it will relaunch a tender worth up to $US 2bn for up to 846 metro cars following a disappointing response to the initial tender.

FOLLOWING a shareholders' meeting, the board of Italian Railway Network (RFI) announced on July 24 that it has appointed Mr Maurizio Gentile as the infrastructure manager's new CEO.

THE prime minister of Turkey, Mr Recep Erdogan, officially opened the 245km Eskişehir – Istanbul section of the 533km Ankara – Istanbul high-speed line on July 25.

BALFOUR Beatty and Carillion have announced that they are in talks over a possible merger that could create a £3bn construction and services business.

GERMAN Rail (DB) published its financial results for the first half of 2014 on July 24, revealing that ridership on its trains in Germany increased by 10 million year-on-year to just over 1 billion passengers.

MOROCCAN National Railways (ONCF) has awarded a €30m contract for the first phase of its national GSM-R deployment to a consortium of Thales, Huawei, and Imet, Italy.

THE French Senate definitively adopted the findings of the parliamentary joint committee (CMP) on draft legislation on railway reform in one of the final steps in the legislative process before the bill becomes law.

THE Management Authority for Urban Railways (Maur) in Ho Chi Minh City has awarded a contract to the Shimizu Maeda Joint Operation, Japan, to construct a section of the city's first metro line.