THE president of Indonesia, Mr Joko Widodo, attended a ground-breaking ceremony on April 8 to mark the start of construction of a rail link in Central Java from Surakarta (also known as Solo and president Widodo’s birthplace) to Adi Sumarmo International Airport.

THE first sod was cut on April 5 for a €3.84bn 10-year project to build a second east-west S-Bahn line under the centre of Munich to relieve congestion on the parallel existing line.

THE Indian government has applied for a loan from the European Investment Bank (EIB) towards the cost of the Reach 6 Project to build Line 4 of the Bangalore metro.

TUNNEL boring on the Red Line of the Tel Aviv metro started four months ahead of schedule on February 19. Half of the 24km line will be underground.

ISRAEL’s National Council for Design and Construction has approved plans for a 43km interurban tram-train line linking Haifa with Nazareth and referred the project to the Israeli government.

CONSTRUCTION of the $US 3.8bn 472km Mombasa - Nairobi standard-gauge railway (SGR) is due to be completed in March by China Railway and Bridge Corporation (CRBC), which has a 10-year concession to operate the line, to allow test running to begin in preparation for the start of train operation in June.

CITY Rail Link has issued a call for tender to pre-qualify by March 1 for the C3 stations and tunnels package of the $NZ 3bn ($US 2.18bn) project to build a cross-city line in Auckland, New Zealand.

SOUND Transit, which is responsible for building and operating commuter rail, light rail and bus services in the Everett, Seattle and Tacoma area of Washington State, plans to invest $US 1.6bn this year, of which $US 1.2bn is for light rail as part of a plan to create a 187km light rail system.

BRAZIL’s Court of Auditors (TCU) ruled on January 25 that all transfers of funds from state-owned institutions to the Transnordestina railway project must be halted due to a “serious mismatch between the investments and the physical accounting schedule.”