THE Indian Ministry of Railways and Japan’s International Cooperation Agency (Jica) have agreed to work together to improve safety on Indian Railways.

JAPAN’s Metropolitan Intercity Railway Company has awarded Hitachi a contract to supply five six-car suburban EMUs for Tsukuba Express services on its 58km line from Tokyo’s Akihabara station to the city of Tsukuba in Ibaraki Prefecture.

DHAKA Mass Transit Company (DMTCL) has awarded a $US 500m lump-sum contract to a joint venture of Marubeni, Japan, and Larsen & Toubro, India for the electro-mechanical contract for Line 6, which is the first metro line to be built in the Bangladesh capital.

JAPAN’s International Cooperation Agency (Jica) has agreed to lend Yen 104.53bn ($US 1bn) to the Philippines for construction of the first underground metro line in Manila, which is a flagship scheme of the government’s Build-Build-Build programme.

MITSUBISHI Electric has delivered wayside and onboard radio equipment for the first deployment of Communciations-Based Train Control (CBTC) on the Tokyo metro network.

Tatsuo Kijima, president and executive officer of JR West, talks to David Briginshaw.

JAPAN’s Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism and Hokkaido Railway Company (JR Hokkaido) have agreed to study the feasibility of raising the maximum line speed in the world’s longest undersea tunnel in a bid to reduce Tokyo - Shin Hakodate Hokuto journey times to less than four hours.

HITACHI has started production at its Kasado facility in Japan of two test trains as part of a fleet of 19 five-car electro-diesel trains which it will build for First TransPennine Express in Britain under a deal financed by Angel Trains.

JAPAN’s Transport Safety Board has launched an investigation after bogie cracks and an oil leak were discovered on a West Japan Railway Company (JR West) N700 Series Shinkansen train while operating a Hakata - Tokyo Nozomi service on December 11.

FRENCH National Railways (SNCF) has awarded a contract to Mitsubishi Electric to supply prototype traction transformers for Z2N EMUs and T4 tram trains operating in Paris.