FAIVELEY Transport has been awarded contracts by Bombardier worth in excess of €60m to supply components for 355 M7 double-decker coaches being supplied by the Bombardier-Alstom consortium to Belgian National Railways (SNCB).

BRITAIN's secretary of state for Transport Mr Patrick McLoughlin inaugurated a new £12m rolling stock testing and commissioning facility at Bombardier's Derby plant on May 13.

MALAYSIA's Rapid Transit Corporation (MRT) has awarded two systems and two civil works contracts worth Ringgits 4.2bn ($US 1bn) related to the construction of Line 2 in Kuala Lumpur.

CHANGCHUN Bombardier Railway Vehicles (CBRV) has handed over the final C951 Movia three-car train for Singapore's Downtown Line (DTL) to Singapore Land Transport Authority (LTA) in a ceremony at the joint venture's Chinese plant.

THE government of the Australian state of Victoria published its 2016-17 budget on April 27, making provision for numerous rail projects and allocating more than $A 3.2bn ($US 2.4bn) to improve public transport.

THE Canadian city of Edmonton officially launched construction of the first phase of the light rail Valley Line on April 22, when the city's mayor Mr Don Iverson was joined by federal minister of infrastructure and communities Mr Amarjeet Sohi, Alberta minister of transportation and infrastructure Mr Brian Mason, and representatives of indigenous communities for a groundbreaking ceremony at the site of Muttart station.

BAY Area Rapid Transit (Bart) is starting dynamic testing of the first of 775 Fleet of the Future metro cars being built by Bombardier under a $US 2.5bn contract following arrival of the first car in San Francisco on April 6.

NETHERLANDS Railways (NS) has directly awarded Siemens and Bombardier a contract to upgrade its fleet of 131 Sprinter Light Train (SLT) EMUs, which were originally supplied by the two manufacturers in 2007-2012, to comply with the Technical Specification for Interoperability for Persons With Reduced Mobility (PRM-TSI).

THE board of Ile-de-France transport authority Stif has adopted a strategy to accelerate the modernisation of suburban trains in the Paris area, allocating €8.5bn towards the renewal and refurbishment of rolling stock over the next five years.

Israel's network expansion programme and technological upgrades are set to revolutionise rail transport in the country in the next four to five years. Kevin Smith visits facilities in Haifa and Lod to see how the railway is preparing for the transition.