KING Mohammed VI of Morocco today inaugurated Casablanca's first light rail line. The 31km line links Casablanca's eastern and southwestern suburbs with the city centre and has 48 stations.

KIWIRAIL has launched its refurbished Tranz Alpine passenger train which has been re-equipped with new passenger coaches built at the Hillside workshops in Dunedin.

PRESIDENT Dilma Rousseff of Brazil, speaking today at the 81st General Assembly of the International Union of Railways (UIC) in Paris, told delegates that the first phase of the Brazilian high-speed project will be announced tomorrow.

SIX CEOs from some of Europe's leading capital city public transport operators gathered in Rome today and signed a declaration calling for European governments to invest in public transport as a means of kick starting the European economy.

A joint tender by Hungarian operators MAV-Start and GySEV for 48 emus has attracted interest from eight train builders.

THE German state of Bavaria, through its transport authority Bavarian Railways (BEG), has called for bids for the operation of passenger rail services on the Weissenhorn – Senden – Ulm line under a three-year concession.

BRITISH West Coast Main Line operator Virgin Trains has extended its contract with Bombardier until March 2016 to maintain its fleet of Super Voyager diesel trains. The contract is worth about £106m.

LARSEN & Toubro, the Indian contractor responsible for construction of the initial phase of the Hyderabad metro has awarded Thales a contract worth around Rs 7.4bn ($US 134.3m) to provide CBTC and integrated communications and supervision systems on all three lines.

TENDERS have been invited by PKP Intercity, Poland, to conduct what is termed a Level 4 revision to 271 passenger coaches of 23 types. The closing date for bids is January 15.

TEST running is now in full swing on the 681km high-speed line connecting the Chinese capital Beijing with Zhengzhou.