After decades of decline, the government of Argentina has drawn up plans to invest $US 16.6bn in the country’s railway network by 2023. Keith Barrow explains how international expertise - and finance - will play a vital role in realising this bold vision.

SPANISH engineering consultancy IDOM has completed a feasibility study into the construction of a 21km light rail line in Guatemala City.

THE restoration of passenger services between Buenos Aires and Mar del Plata reached a milestone on November 22, when the first test train arrived in Argentina’s seventh-largest city following the completion of a project to upgrade infrastructure on part of the Roca Line.

SANTIAGO Metro has awarded a joint venture of Arrigoni Engineering & Construction, Chile, and Strukton International a $US 49m contract to construct stations on the new metro Line 3.

URUGUAYAN State Railways (AFE) has acquired seven Y1 single-car DMUs from Swedish rolling stock leasing company NetRail to improve services on the Montevideo - 25 de Agosto line.

THE director of Cuban foreign trade agency Tradex Mr José Antonio Arias signed a contract with Mr Andrei Solovey, CEO of Transmashholding subsidiary Tver Carriage Works (TVZ), on November 10 for 68 passenger coaches for Cuban Union Railways (UFC).

THE first of 18 three-car Metropolis trains for Guadalajara metro Line 3 has left Alstom’s Santa Perpetua de Mogoda plant near Barcelona for the nearby port of Tarragona on the first stage of its journey to Mexico.

THE Acciona-Odebrecht construction consortium, building the first metro line in the Ecuadorian capital Quito has commissioned Siemens to electrify the line, it was announced on October 21.

ACCIONA is preparing a tunnel boring machine (TBM) in Noblejas, Spain, which will be used to excavate the first metro line in Ecuadorian capital Quito.

THE first two CRRC diesel locomotives for Argentina’s metre-gauge Belgrano Cargas network were loaded onto a ship at Lujong port in Shanghai on October 15 in readiness for the start of their sea voyage to Buenos Aires.