ACCORDING to a global study of railway infrastructure suppliers by SCI Verkehr, while Siemens and Voestalpine are still the market leaders, Chinese manufacturers are catching up, which SCI says is due to advancing digitalisation in signalling and train control and profound changes in the international steel market.
SOUTH Central Railway (SCR) announced that, along with Rail Vikas Nigam Limited (RVNL), it has completed the electrification of the 228km Wadi - Guntakal line in southern India.
THE first metro train being built by CRRC Zhuzhou for Lahore’s Orange Line in Pakistan arrived on May 15, with 26 more to be delivered by the end of the year.
CHINA Development Bank (CDB) has signed a $US 4.5bn loan agreement with a consortium of Chinese and Indonesian companies to finance construction of the 142.3km Jakarta - Bandung high-speed line.
CHENNAI marked the opening of the first underground section of its metro network on May 14, when Tamil Nadu chief minister Mr Edappadi Palaniswami and India’s minister of urban development Mr Venkaiah Naidu inaugurated the 7.4km stretch of the Green Line between Koyambedu and Nehru Park.
STATE Railway of Thailand (SRT) launched a tender on May 9 for a contract to supply 50 metre-gauge diesel-electric locomotives.
SHANGHAI Shentong Metro Group has awarded Shentong Bombardier (Shanghai) Rail Transit Vehicle Maintenance Company (SHBRT) two contracts worth a total of Yuan 1.1bn ($US 158m) to carry out 10-year overhauls on 498 metro cars used on lines 7 and 9.
HAMEDAN, a city of nearly 500,000 inhabitants in western Iran, finally joined the national railway network on May 8, when the country’s president Dr Hassan Rouhani made an inaugural trip on the 276km line from Tehran.
CONSTRUCTION of the first high-speed line in the Chinese autonomous region of Inner Mongolia on May 7, when high-speed testing commenced on part of the 286.8km line from Hohhot to Zhangjiakou in neighbouring Hebei province.
TRIAL operation began on May 1 on the eastern section of the 51km Klang Valley MRT Sungai Buloh - Kajang Line (Line MRT1) in Kuala Lumpur.
