THAILAND's government has approved construction of the 187km metre-gauge line from Chira junction to Khon Kaen, which is part of the Transport Ministry's new infrastructure development plan.
INDIAN Railways' Rs 240bn ($US 4.5bn) project to construct a 63km elevated rail corridor linking Churchgate to Virar in Mumbai has been abandoned following a lack of response from private parties.
CONSTRUCTION of the first phase of Hyderabad's metro network reached a milestone on May 8 with the first trial run on the 4.4km northern section of Line 1 between the depot at Miyapur and Kukatpally.
TRENITALIA has revolutionised the passenger rail service between Palermo and Catania, the two largest cities on the island of Sicily, in response to the collapse of a bridge on the parallel A19 highway.
THE mayor of Florence Mr Dario Nardella visited the district of Novoli on April 30 to view progress on the construction of the city's second light rail line and mark the laying of the first 100m of track.
BOMBARDIER confirmed on May 6 that Ile-de-France Transport Authority (Stif) and French National Railways (SNCF) subsidiary SNCF Mobility have placed a €127m order for 19 additional class Z 50000 Francilien EMUs for suburban services in the Paris area.
THE Economic, Budget and Finance committee of the Legislative Council of the federal district of Brasilia has approved a bill allowing the local government to proceed with a Reais 737.1m ($US 241.1m) loan agreement to purchase 10 new metro trains and complete work on intermediate stations on the northwest section of the network.
THE Western Australian state government has announced that three consortia have been shortlisted to bid for the design-build contract for Perth's $A 2.2bn ($US 2bn) Forrestfield-Airport Link.
THE prime ministers of Singapore and Malaysia announced on May 5 that a revised timeline will be drawn up for the 330km Singapore – Kuala Lumpur high-speed line as the scale and complexity of the project means the target launch date of 2020 agreed by the two countries in February 2013 cannot be met.
THE first of four additional Variobahn low-floor LRVs being supplied to Transport for London (TfL) by Stadler Pankow for the Croydon Tramlink network was delivered by road to Croydon over the weekend of May 3-4.
