MORE than 7100 passengers took part in six hours of complimentary trial operations on Dalian metro Line 2 on April 30, with 11 trains carrying out more than 100 pilot runs.

ISRAEL Railways (IR) held a three day conference last week to meet with the five participants in the tender for the national railway electrification project as they prepare to submit bids by July 23.

CONSTRUCTION of Toronto's 11km Finch West LRT project will commence in 2017, Ontario's minister of transportation Mr Stephen De Duca announced this week.

BUENOS Aires metro authority Sbase president Mr Juan Pablo Piccardo has announced that the authority is set to launch a tender this year to construct the first stage of metro Line F from Constitution Plaza Callao to Santa Fe. Work on the project is expected to start in 2016 and will take four years to complete.

RUSSIAN Railways (RZD) has selected a consortium led by Mosgiprotrans and including Nizhegorodmetroproekt and China Railway Eryuan Engineering Group (CREEC) to provide preliminary surveys and design for the proposed Moscow - Kazan high-speed line.

MILAN celebrated the opening of five stations on the 7.4km east-west extension of Line 5 on April 29, just two days before the inauguration of Expo 2015.

ABELLIO's German subsidiary Abellio Rail NRW has published a tender request in the Official Journal of the European Union for new EMUs for regional services.

INDONESIAN officials say construction of a new 143km line from Makassar to Parepare in South Sulawesi will begin this July once land acquisition is complete.

THE status of National Express as preferred bidder for two contracts to operate the Nuremberg S-Bahn network appears to be in doubt after Southern Bavaria's procuremnt office (VBS) ruled on April 27 that the Bavarian Railway Authority (BEG) must exclude the company from the tendering process.

THE FIRST of 22 Alstom Metropolis trains for the Los Teques metro has left the French port of Le Havre on its three-week sea voyage to Venezuela.