BANGLADESH Railways (BR) issued a notice of intent to Indonesian rolling stock manufacturer PT Inka on June 11 for a contract to supply 200 metre-gauge coaches.

AROUND six months later than scheduled, Singapore officially opened the 7.5km Tuas West Extension (TWE) of the East West Line (EWL) on June 16.

THE first phase of the metro network in the Indian city of Kochi was inaugurated by Indian prime minister Mr Narendra Modi on June 17.

MALAYSIA’s MyHSR Corporation and Singapore’s Land Transport Authority (LTA) will jointly hold an industry briefing in Singapore on July 5 for the Assets Company (AssetsCo) tender for the Kuala Lumpur - Singapore high-speed rail project.

INDIAN Railways (IR) says it is planning to adopt a sustainable procurement policy in a bid to reduce lifecycle costs and reduce its impact on the environment.

SHIJIAZHUANG, a city of more than 10 million people and the capital of China’s Hebei province, opened its first metro line on June 14 with the start of trial passenger operation on the Yuan 17.3bn ($US 2.6bn) first phase of Line 1.

COMMERCIAL operations finally began on the first light rail in the Chinese city of Zhuhai on June 13, more than two-and-a-half years after testing began on the 8.9km east-west line from Haitian Garden to Shangzhong.

The initial 22km section of Tehran Line 7 from Meydane San’at in the north of the city to Basij in the southeast was inaugurated on June 11.

PRODUCTION has begun at Hitachi’s Kasado plant on a new fleet of 10-car suburban EMUs for Soetsu’s Sagami Railway in Japan’s Kanagawa prefecture.

DALIAN’s metro network reached 160km on June 7 with the start of trial operation on three newly-completed extensions.