RUSSIAN Railways (RZD) announced on February 11 that it plans to continue the modernisation of its motive power fleet this year with the acquisition of 629 new locomotives at a total cost of Roubles 76.1bn ($US 2.17bn).
THE prime minister of Turkey, Mr Tayyip Erdoğan, and prime minister of Spain, Mr Mariano Rajoy, presided over a ceremony held in the Turkish capital of Ankara on February 12 to mark the opening of the city's second heavy metro line, M3.
DURING the announcement of an interim budget of Rs 643bn ($US 10.26bn) for Indian Railways for 2014-15, India's railways minister Mr Mallikarjun Kharge outlined plans to allow Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) to fund infrastructure projects.
KOREA's national rail operator, Korail, has issued a call for tender for 15 10-car high-speed trains for operation on the new Wongang line which opens in 2017 and will link Wonju, southeast of Seoul, with the east coast city of Gangneung.
THE board of Russian Railways (RZD) has decided to sell half of its 50% holding in airport express train operator Aeroexpress which it acquired in 2008.
Zhengzhou's metro is the first network in the world to utilise a 4G LTE communications platform. Kevin Smith travelled to China to witness the system in action.
A 228km section of the Hokuriku Shinkansen is scheduled to open in March 2015, which is one of three extensions to the Japanese high-speed network currently under construction, as Yoshihiko Sato and David Briginshaw explain.
Following a peak in construction of high-speed lines during the last few years, the global market for high-speed trains is expected to settle at a lower but stable level by 2017.
New railway projects in Thailand have long been hampered by a lack of finance and government bureaucracy. But with a new $US 68.5bn transport infrastructure financing package secured in November, Dr Chula Sukmanop, director of Thailand's Office of Transport Policy and Planning, tells Kevin Smith how this agreement has bred new life into the country's investment plans.
The rush is on to develop new heavy-haul railway infrastructure on Indonesia's resource-rich islands of Borneo and Sumatra. David Briginshaw and Kevin Smith profile the latest projects.
