SOUTH Europe Atlantique Maintenance & Operations (Mesea), which will be responsible for maintaining the new 302km Tours – Bordeaux high-speed line when it opens in mid-2017, has awarded a contract to Carl Software for infrastructure maintenance software.

ITALIAN State Railways is promising to introduce several new presentation concepts to the World Congress on Railway Research (WCRR), which it will host in Milan from May 29 - June 2 2016, and is inviting prospective contributors to submit paper abstracts or proposals by April 30.

EUROTUNNEL has signed an agreement with the Railenium research consortium to open up its railway infrastructure for testing of innovations developed at the research facility.

THE European Investment Bank (EIB) signed a €50m loan agreement with Swietelsky Baugesellschaft, Austria, on March 5 to finance a €105m research project into the development of innovative track maintenance techniques.

SPAIN's Council of Ministers has authorised the Ministry of Development to approve a tender by Adif High Speed worth €266m for the construction of three sections of the Basque Y high-speed network linking Vitoria, Bilbao and San Sebastián with Irun on the French border.

BRITISH infrastructure manager Network Rail (NR) has placed a £50m order with Plasser & Theurer for a new ballast cleaning machine, taking its total to five. Dubbed BCS5, this is the first unit to utilise third-rail operation and is designed to enable the conductor rail to remain in place during operation.

SWISS Federal Railways (SBB) has named the winners of contracts worth a total of SFr 136m ($US 144m) for tracklaying services over the next 5-10 years.

TATA Steel has been awarded contracts to supply 7000 tonnes of rails for the Crossrail east-west rail link across central London.

SCOTTISH cabinet secretary for infrastructure Mr Keith Brown joined contractors at Tweedbank station on February 12 to attach the final rail clip on the Borders Railway, marking the completion of tracklaying on the 48km line from Newcraighall, south of Edinburgh.

THE board of South Florida Regional Transportation Authority (SFRTA) has awarded Transdev's US rail infrastructure maintenance subsidiary VTMI a $US 161m contract to maintain track, signalling, and structures on the 115km Tri-Rail commuter line from West Palm Beach to Fort Lauderdale and Miami.