LATVIA’s Ministry of Transport has issued a call for tender on behalf of RB Rail for the detailed design and design supervision of a 60km section of the standard-gauge Rail Baltica project linking Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland. The deadline for submissions is June 18.

SOCIÉTÉ du Grand Paris (SGP) has awarded the first of three civil engineering contracts for four work packages on lines 14 North, 16 and 17 South of the Grand Paris automated metro network to a group led by Eiffage Civil Engineering under a €1.84bn deal.

TELT, the Franco-Italian consortium responsible for implementing the €8.6bn 65km Lyon - Turin rail link from Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne to Susa/Bussoleno, has awarded a contract to the S2IP consortium comprising Systra, Setec, Italferr and Pini Swiss Engineers, for civil engineering project management.

THE Brazilian city of Rio de Janeiro has started construction of Line 3 of the Porto Maravilha light rail network, which is being developed by Rio’s Port Urban Development Company (CDURP).

BRAZIL’s federal government plans to start the tender process for the 1142km Ferrogrão rail project in the first quarter of 2018, leading to an auction in the second quarter.

THE three shortlisted bidders for design, build, finance and maintain contract for the $C 1.2bn ($US 933.6m) Finch West LRT project in Ontario, Canada, have submitted their proposals to Infrastructure Ontario and Metrolinx. The preferred bidder is expected to be announced in spring 2018.

THE £85m Ordsall Chord project, to provide Manchester with a cross-city mainline rail link, opened on December 10.

TWO special trains were operated on December 8 and a ceremony was staged in Berlin attended by Germany’s chancellor, Mrs Angela Merkel, and federal transport minister Mr Christian Schmidt to mark the completion of the final section of the 623km Berlin - Erfurt - Nuremberg - Munich high-speed line.

THE Autonomous Municipal Decentralised Government of Cuenca, Ecuador, has selected the ACTN Consortium to complete the civil works for a 10km light rail line with 27 stations in this Unesco world heritage city.

INDIA’s prime minister Mr Narendra Modi and the chief minister of Telengana state Mr K Chandrashekhar Rao made an inaugural trip on November 28 to mark the completion of the first 30km section of the Hyderabad metro linking Miyapur with Nagole.