TAMPERE City Council decided on October 3 to select Škoda Transportation subsidiary Transtech as preferred bidder for a contract to supply and maintain low-floor LRVs for the Finnish city’s first light rail line.

TOKYO Metro has unveiled designs for the modernisation of three stations on the Ginza Line, Asia’s oldest metro line.

THE last of 83 Hyundai Rotem FP class Matangi EMUs entered service on Wellington’s Metlink commuter rail network at the end of September, marking the completion of a $NZ 430m ($US 313m) project to modernise the rolling stock fleet in New Zealand’s second-largest city.

A full-size mock up of the Alstom Citadis X05 LRV for the second tram line in Nice went on public display in Place Garibaldi on October 1.

SAN DIEGO Association of Governments (Sandag) has awarded Mid-Coast Contractors, a joint venture of Skanska, Stacy and Witbeck, and Herzog, a $US 921.8m contract to build the Mid-Coast light rail line.

CONSTRUCTION of the second phase of the metro network in the Brazilian city of Salvador reached a milestone on September 29 with the start of dynamic testing on the east-west Line 2.

AN agreement to develop mail coaches for operation between China, Russia and western Europe was signed by managing director of Tver Carriage Works (TVZ) Mr Taras Spivak, Deputy director general of Russian Post Logistics Mr Alexey Skatin, and head of Siemens Mobility Russia Mr Jörg Liebscher at last week’s Sochi International Investment Forum.

JAPAN’s Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport (MILT) announced on September 26 that it has approved plans for the construction of a 14.6km light rail line in Utsunomiya, the capital of Tochigi prefecture north of Tokyo.

THE United States Federal Transit Administration (FTA) has awarded Florida commuter rail operator SunRail a $US 93.4m grant to for its 27.7km southern extension from Sand Lake Road in Orlando to Kissimmee and Poinciana in Osceola County.