MYANMAR Railways signed a $US 19.9m contract with Mitsubishi Corporation and Hitachi on May 15 for resignalling of the 140km Yangon – Pyuntasa section of the Yangon – Mandalay line.

With ever-increasing demand for onboard Wi-Fi and services to benefit operations, Professor Simon Saunders of Real Wireless, considers the next steps for wireless technologies in the rail industry.

Attempts to offer a 4G LTE mobile network service in tunnels remain in their infancy. However, trials with "leaky feeder" cables in Hannover have shown that it is possible to deliver reliable mobile broadband services underground, as Axel Schroeder, commercial product manager indoor systems at Radio Frequency Systems, explains.

NETWORK Rail (NR) has awarded Siemens Rail Automation a contract to develop system architecture and a deployment strategy for the rollout of an ETCS Level 2 overlay on the Great Western Main Line.

THE first dynamic tests on Amsterdam's 9.8km North-South Line were made on April 21 using an M4 train from the Ring Line propelled by a shunting tractor. The tests took place at the northern end of the line between Noord and Noorderpark stations.

THE government of the Philippines has allocated Peso 1.21bn ($US 27.35m) from its 2015 budget to the Department of Transportation and Communications to fund upgrades to Manila metro Line 3.

NIPPON Signal, Japan, which is installing communications-based train control (CBTC) on the new Line 8 in Delhi, has awarded a contract to Frauscher India to supply ACS2000 axle counters as a fall-back track vacancy detection system in case of a failure of the primary radio communication system.

POLISH infrastructure manger PKP PLK has awarded has awarded a consortium of Bombardier and Krakowskie Zaklady Automatyki, Poland, a Zlotys 210m ($US 56.5m) contract to install new signalling equipment on the Rawicz - Czempin section of the Wroclaw - Poznan line.

ALL Aboard Florida, the inter-city passenger subsidiary of Florida East Coast Railway (FEC) has selected GE Transportation to supply signalling, level crossings, and related Positive Train Control (PTC) equipment as part of its project to launch inter-city passenger services on the 375km Miami – Orlando corridor.

EGYPTIAN National Railways (ENR) has awarded a $US 600m track upgrading contract to China Civil Engineering Construction Corporation (CCECC), a subsidiary of China Railway Construction Corporation (CRCC).