CHINA's Ministry of Railways has awarded a Euros 140 million contract to Vossloh's Chinese subsidiary for track fastenings. The fastenings will be supplied next year and will be fitted on a long section of the1892km Lanzhou - Urumqi line in northwestern China.

NORWEGIAN financial services group, DnB NOR, has ordered six Flexity Classic LRVs from Bombardier for use on the Spårväg City line in Stockholm in a deal worth Euros 21 million.

THE World Bank has agreed to provide a $US 430 million loan to fund the Mumbai Urban Transport Project II which is intended to increase capacity on the Mumbai commuter rail network by 2014-15.

EGYPT's National Authority for Tunnels has awarded a contract worth about Yen 18 billion ($US 208 million) for 88 cars for the Cairo metro to a Japanese consortium led by Mitsubishi and including Kinki Sharyo and Toshiba. Kinki Sharyo will manufacture the trains while Toshiba will supply the electrical equipment.

AT LEAST three, and as many as six, bids are thought to have been submitted for a 30-year franchise to operate Britain's 108km High Speed 1 rail link between London St Pancras and the Channel Tunnel.

TRANSPORT for London (TfL) has ended its Prestige public finance initiative (PFI) contract with the TranSys consortium of Cubic Transportation Systems and HP Enterprise Services and replaced it with a conventional contract with Cubic.

CHENNAI Metro Rail has chosen Alstom to supply a fleet of 42 four-car trains at a cost of Rs 14.7 billion ($US 316.8 million). Each set will accommodate 1276 passengers with first-class sections in the driving cars. The stainless-steel trains will have inter-car gangways, air-conditioning, electronic maps, public address, and CCTV.

STATE Railway of Thailand (SRT) plans to start work this year on 11 rail projects worth Baht 87.5 billion ($US 2.7 billion), following provisional approval by the Thai government. The Ministry of Transport is studying another 10 projects worth a further Baht 98 billion.

THE Denver Transit Partners (DTP) consortium led by Fluor has concluded the financing of a $US 2 billion public-private partnership project to design, build, finance and operate a 58km commuter rail network in Denver. The six-year design and build phase will cost $US 1 billion, with ground breaking scheduled for August 26. The 29-year operation and maintenance contract is worth a further $US 1 billion. A contract for the second phase of the project is expected to be let next year.