ŠKODA Transportation has secured a follow-on order from the Turkish city of Konya for 12 catenary-free type 28T Classic LRVs. The new vehicles follow an order for 60 conventional vehicles which are already being rolled out in the city from a €104.7m contract awarded in March 2013.

VOSSLOH Rail Services (VRS) and Düsseldorf's Rheinbahn marked the 17th International Noise Awareness day on April 30 by showcasing Vossloh's prototype High Speed Grinding (HSG) City track maintenance machine during an event at Rheinbahn's Lierenfelder Straße depot.

VOSSLOH Group says the high cost of certifying rail vehicles is largely to blame for a 30.8% drop in Ebit to €6.5m for the first quarter of the 2014 financial year.

CHINA Railway Engineering Corporation has started work to electrify the 34.3km two-line light rail network under construction in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa.

DALLAS Area Rapid Transit (Dart) operated its first test run on the 8km light rail Orange Line extension to Dallas Forth Worth International Airport on April 16.

ALGERIA's transport minister Mr Amar Ghoul inaugurated the 4.2km eastern extension of Algiers light rail Line 1 from Bordj El Kiffan to Kahouat Echergui on April 16.

MUNICIPAL authorities in San Diego, California, and the neighbouring city of Tijuana in the Mexican state of Baja California have revived plans for a light rail line spanning the US-Mexican border.

BREMEN Tramways (BSAG) has announced plans to acquire a fleet of up to 77 LRVs and refurbish up to 62 existing GT8N low-floor trams as part of its demand-driven tram use (Nose) project.

CSR Nanjing Puzhen Rolling Stock has unveiled the first of 18 low-floor Flexity 2 LRVs for the first phase of the city of Suzhou's under-construction light rail network.

THE FIRST of 22 LRVs being built by Tremvia Santos, a consortium of TTrans and Vossloh, for the first light rail line in the Brazilian city of Santos began its sea voyage from Spain to Brazil on April 8.