A German federal court in Leipzig has ended a long-running dispute over the reinstatement of rail link in southern Berlin which will cut journey times to the new Berlin Brandenburg Airport, when it eventually opens, and Dresden.

EAST Japan Railway (JR East) has announced plans to build a 360km/h test train by spring 2019 as the basis for a new fleet of E956 10-car trains to be introduced in time for the opening of the Hokkaido Shinkansen to Sapporo in 2030.

KOREA’s national train operator Korail has be awarded a Won 5bn ($US 4.3m) consultancy contract for Manila metro Line MRT-7 from San Miguel Holdings’ subsidiary Universal LRT, which is implementing the project.

THE first of two prototype trains built by Indian Railways’ Integral Coach Factory (ICF) for the Kolkata metro was unveiled on July 4 in the presence of the chairman of Indian Railways Mr A L Mital and the ICF general manager Mr S Mani.

THE transportation undersecretary of the Philippines, Mr Cesar Chavez, announced on July 3 that construction will start in the second quarter of 2018 on the first phase of a project to build a 2000km railway on the island of Mindanao.

AUSTRIA’s railway network carried a total of 288.8 million passengers in 2016, an increase of 6.4 million from 2015, according to figures released by Austrian rail regulator Schienen-Control in its annual report.

THE government of São Paulo has postponed bidding for the public-private partnership (PPP) concession to operate lines 5 and 17 of the Brazilian city’s metro network from July 4 until September 28.

RUSSIA’s state appraisals company, the Glavgosexpertiza, has approved design documentation for the third and fourth construction phases of the proposed Moscow - Kazan high-speed line.

GRAND Paris Express has awarded the final two civil works contracts for the construction of the €3.7bn 33km Line 15 South linking Pont-de-Sèvres and Noisy Champs in the southern suburbs of Paris.

RB Rail, the Estonian, Latvian and Lithuanian joint venture responsible for implementing the Rail Baltica standard-gauge high-speed project, has awarded a €563,065 contract to Systra to develop design guidelines for the project.