CHINA Railway Rolling Stock Corporation (CRRC) has awarded Hollysys Automation Technologies a Yuan 483.8m ($US 74.9m) contract to supply Automatic Train Protection (ATP) equipment for 179 high-speed trains being built for China Railway Corporation.

CHINA's Exim Bank has agreed to provide $US 1.5bn to fund 85% of the cost of extending the 609km Mombasa – Nairobi standard-gauge line currently under construction 120km north to Naivasha, while the Kenya government will fund the remaining 15%.

What should the cities of 2050 look like? And what investments in public transport infrastructure are required to meet future demand and improve wellbeing? Dr Lewis Fulton and Kevin Smith review a study by researchers at University of California Davis and the Institute for Transportation Development and Policy which attempts to answer these questions and more.

THE construction of a high-speed line encircling Hainan reached a key milestone on November 26 when the first test train ran on the 344km Western High-Speed Ring Railway, completing the 652km loop around the Chinese island.

CHINA's National Development and Reform Commission gave the go-ahead on November 20 for the construction of a 618km high-speed line linking Xi'an with Yinchuan in the western autonomous region of Ningxia, which is not currently linked to the high-speed network.

THE Thai cabinet gave its seal of approval on November 17 to signing a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with China on December 19 for a Baht 400bn ($US 11bn) project to build an 873km railway across Thailand.

VOITH, Germany, has handed over the first three of its RailPack 400DE power-packs for installation on 30 three-car hybrid trains which Changchun Railway Vehicles is building for China Railway Corporation (CRC) for use on non-electrified or partially-electrified suburban lines.

INTERMODAL traffic using the Trans-Siberian Railway between China and Russia increased by 89% year-on-year in the first nine months of 2015 to approximately 66,000 TEUs, and follows a 98% increase in traffic in 2014. However, overall intermodal traffic on the route fell during the same period.

With lacklustre domestic economic growth and turmoil in the commodities sector resulting in a difficult year for Australian railfreight, Mark Carter reviews the current issues and looks at the key indicators that will shape the industry in 2016 and beyond.