LUTHER Miller, the co-founder of IRJ, has retired at the age of 88 after 59 years with IRJ's US sister publication Railway Age.

ALSTOM has completed manufacturing of the first Citadis LRV for the Ecuadorian city of Cuenca at its plant in La Rochelle. The vehicle is currently in transit and is expected to arrive in Ecuador's third largest city by the end of June.

CONTRACTORS working on Rome metro Line C completed a 5.4km, six-station extension of the driverless line from Parco di Centocelle to Lodi on April 30. Rome metro is currently carrying out line tests ahead of the start of commercial operations in the first half of July.

AUSTRIAN open-access operator Westbahn will purchase 10 additional Kiss EMUs from Stadler in a €180m deal announced by Mr Peter Haselsteiner, director of Rail Holding, Westbahn's parent company.

REHABILITATION is underway of the 62km line linking Tacna in southern Perú, with Arica in northern Chile, and the passenger service should be restored in July with two round trips per day using a refurbished railbus.

A memorandum of cooperation between China and Russia was signed in the Kremlin on May 9 which Russia's Tass news agency says will result in China investing Roubles 104bn ($US 2bn) in the Roubles 1 trillion Moscow – Kazan high-speed project.

THREE new European Union (EU) railway research projects, which will form the preliminary work of the future core activities of the Shift2Rail joint technology initiative, were launched at an event held in Brussels last week.

LOWER Saxony's regional public transport authority LNVG has announced a tender for express and regional services covering the north, central and southern regions of the German state in the Official Journal of the European Union.

THAILAND's government has approved construction of the 187km metre-gauge line from Chira junction to Khon Kaen, which is part of the Transport Ministry's new infrastructure development plan.

INDIAN Railways' Rs 240bn ($US 4.5bn) project to construct a 63km elevated rail corridor linking Churchgate to Virar in Mumbai has been abandoned following a lack of response from private parties.