LATVIAN Railways (LDZ) has selected a consortium of Bombardier and Belam Riga to deliver Bombardier's Interflo 200 mainline signalling system on a section of the Bolderaja - Zasulauks line which connects the capital Riga with the Bolderaja and Riga harbour area. The contract is worth Lats 9.5m ($US 17.9m), including a Lats 3.7m share for Bombardier.

INVENSYS Rail Dimetronic has begun dynamic testing of the signalling system on the initial 4.3km section of Singapore's Downtown Line between Chinatown and Bugis in preparation for the start of commercial services in October.

HABTOOR Leighton Group (HLG), the civil works contractor building Qatar's Education City light rail line, has awarded Rail.One a contract to supply its Rheda City ballastless track system for the project.

BRITAIN's Department for Transport (DfT) has published details of its initial preferred route for the second phase of High Speed Two (HS2), which will extend the line north from the Birmingham area with two separate branches totalling 338 route-km to Manchester and Leeds.

THE inaugural passenger services with Desiro Rus emus built by Siemens for Russian Railways (RZD) commenced on Wednesday following a ceremony at Moscow Station in St Petersburg.

FRENCH National Railways (SNCF) will today carry its 2 billionth TGV passenger since the first high-speed line opened in 1981, which it describes as a "real popular success and a European record."

TURKMENISTAN's president Mr Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov signed a number of documents on January 17 that will enable its domestic railway to complete construction of a new north-south railway from Gyzlgaya to Bereket and Ertek following the failure by Iranian contractor Pars Energy to complete work on the Bereket - Etrek section on time.

A tripartite memorandum of understanding was signed in Yerevan on January 24 concerning the construction of the Southern Armenia Railway, which will form part of a new north-south corridor linking the Black Sea and the Persian Gulf.

DANISH infrastructure manager Banedanmark has commissioned Siemens to equip 840 rail vehicles with GSM-R technology in an order worth €20m.

CHANNEL Tunnel operator Eurotunnel says it had a record year in 2012 with a 14% increase in turnover to €993.1m. Passenger traffic breached the 300 million mark in October 2012 since the tunnel opened in 1994.