RAIL will remain Spain's transport priority according to the draft budget for 2016 which allocates more than half of spending to rail projects with a special focus on completing the extensive high-speed network.

Italian State Railways is on course to become the first European integrated national railway to sell a minority stake to private shareholders. FS Group CEO, Mr Michele Mario Elia, took time during the UIC's high-speed rail congress in Tokyo to talk to David Briginshaw about his plans for FS.

SEIBU Railway's new series 40,000 trains, which are due to enter service on lines serving Tokyo and its suburbs in spring 2017, will be fitted with propulsion systems supplied by Toshiba after the company won a contract to deliver 24 sets for eight 10-car trains.

WITH an increasing number of cities constructing light rail networks in response to growing urbanisation, and ageing fleets up for renewal, the market for LRVs is expected to grow at 4% per annum over the next five years, according to the latest market study by SCI Verkehr.

VIVARAIL has begun dynamic testing of its prototype D-Train DMU on the test track at its base at Long Marston in central England.

WORK will start on August 22 on upgrading the cross-border rail link between Heerlen, Netherlands and Aachen, Germany.

INDIAN Railways (IR) has received bids from seven parties for a contract worth Rs 25bn ($US 379m) to supply 315 main line EMUs divided into 20 trains of 16 and 20-car sets, which will deployed on IR's existing broad-gauge Rajdhani and Shatabdi express services.

BERN Solothurn Regional Transport (RBS), which operates a 54km metre-gauge network of suburban lines radiating from the Swiss capital Bern, has invited bids for a fleet of 14 EMUs for S-Bahn Line 7.

THE first of 10 Alstom Régiolis trains for the French region of Upper Normandy was officially presented to regional president Mr Nicholas Mayer Rossignol by SNCF Mobility regional director Mr Jean-Philippe Dupont and Mr Jean Williamson, director of Alstom's Reichshoffen plant, at Sotteville depot near Rouen on August 18.

BRITISH rolling stock leasing company Angel Trains announced on August 18 that two of its existing shareholders, Australian pension fund AMP Capital Investors and PSP Investments, Canada, have acquired the entire stake previously held by Arcus European Infrastructure Fund.