LONDON Underground's £11m project to enable 36 trains/hour/direction to operate on the Victoria Line for the first time - the highest frequency on the network - has reached the halfway point.

GERMAN Rail (DB) and the European Railway Industry Association (Unife) have signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to advance the International Railway Industry Standard (Iris) with the goal of improving the quality and reliability of products and better fulfilling customer requirements.

MR Oleg Belozerov, Russia's first deputy minister of transport, has been appointed president of Russian Railways (RZD) by Russian prime minister Mr Dmitry Medvedev at a meeting in Moscow on August 20.

DEDICATED Freight Corridor Corporation of India (DFFCIL) has awarded two civil works contracts worth Rs 43.3bn ($US 660m) for sections of the second phase of the Western Dedicated Freight Corridor (DFC) between Delhi and Mumbai to the Express Freight Consortium, which is led by Mitsui & Co, Japan.

AROUND 30 companies attended a prequalification conference in Manila on August 20 for the Philippines' largest public-private partnership (PPP) project, the Pesos 170.7bn ($US 3.66bn) southern section of the North-South Railway Project (NSRP).

CHINA is to construct a second high-speed line between Fuzhou and Zhangzhou, but with a design speed of 350km/h rather than the 250km/h design speed of the existing line which opened in 2010 and is now very busy with trains operating in excess of 100% occupancy.

THE first locomotive produced by First Locomotive Company, the joint venture of Zavod Metallokonstrukcii and Bombardier, was unveiled at a ceremony held at the joint venture's Engels plant in Saratov region, Russia, on August 19.

BANGLADESH Railway (BR) has awarded a Rs 200m ($US 3m) contract to Barsyl, India, to conduct detailed design and construction supervision for the rehabilitation of the Kulaura - Shahbazpur line.

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.