PROINVERSIÓN, Peru's private investment promotion agency, has prequalified three consortia for the $US 6.5bn construction, operation and maintenance contract for Lima Metro Line 2, a 35km east-west underground line that will connect the district of Ate Vitarte with the city centre and Callao on the Pacific coast.

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.

EMTU, which is managing a project to build a 16.9km light rail line linking São Vicente with Santos, Brazil, says that testing of the first LRV will start in June.

CCR, which was awarded a Reais 4bn ($US 1.65bn) construction and operation concession for the second phase of the Salvador metro in the Brazilian state of Bahia, has decided to purchase a fleet of 49 four-car trains from a consortium of Hyundai Rotem, Korea and Iesa, Brazil.

CONTRACTORS are preparing to start work on a $US 100m project funded by the Colombian government to rehabilitate two 914mm-gauge lines which are currently out of service with a view to starting freight operations by mid-2015.

BRAZILIAN president Mrs Dilma Rousseff announced on January 17 that the federal government has reached an agreement with the state of Minas Gerais and the municipality of Belo Horizonte to invest Reais 2bn ($US 853m) in the expansion of the city's metro network.

BRAZIL's largest railfreight operator Latin American Logistics (ALL) and Rumo Logistics, a subsidiary of Cosan Group which specialises in the transport of ethanol and sugar, have announced plans to merge.

ALSTOM has announced plans to invest €15m in new assembly line at its Taubaté hydro manufacturing plant in the Brazilian state of São Paulo to produce light rail vehicles for the South American market.

CCR, the build-and-operate concessionaire constructing the second phase of the metro network in the Brazilian city of Salvador, has awarded Egis Rail a contract to provide systems engineering services for the project.

VLI, the railfreight subsidiary of Brazilian mining giant Vale, is to acquire an additional 306 wagons from Amsted Maxion for use on Brazil's North-South Railway.