ALGERIA’s minister of public works Mr Abdelghani Zalene officially opened the new Algiers Agha station for Algerian National Railways (SNTF) long-distance services on March 2, at an event which also marked the launch of SNTF’s new fleet of Alstom Coradia Polyvalent inter-city trains.

GERMAN Rail (DB) plans to increase spending on maintaining and modernising the existing 33,200km rail network, as well as investment in new projects, by €800m to a record €9.8bn in 2018.

STADLER Rail has been selected for a contract to supply 12 LRVs for the initial phase of the 40.4km interurban light rail network in Bolivia’s fourth largest city Cochabamba.

SIEMENS unveiled its new Smartron locomotive concept for the German rail freight market on March 1, pledging to simplify the procurement of new traction with an offer based on “one version, one contract, one price.”

STATE support for Via Rail’s Fleet Renewal Program was confirmed on February 27 with the publication of the Canadian government’s 2018 budget, which allocates funds to Transport Canada for the procurement of new trains for the Windsor - Quebec City corridor.

CAF, Spain, achieved a 12% increase in net turnover in 2017 which grew from €1.32bn in 2016 to €1.48bn last year. Vehicle sales also grew by 12% to €933m, while services saw an 8% increase to €377m.

THE first completed metro cars for the Jakarta MRT project arrived at the Japanese port of Toyohashi on March 1 in readiness for shippment to Indonesia.

WEST Midlands Trains, Britain, has signed an agreement with Vivarail to supply three of its class 230 D-Trains for operation on the Bletchley - Bedford Marston Vale Line by the end of this year.

PARIS Transport Authority (RATP) has awarded a contract to Siemens to equip Line 14, which is being extended under the Grand Paris project, with a new communications-based train control system (CBTC).