Argentina: Under its 1999-2000 investment programme, Ferrosur has signed an agreement to purchase four locomotives from General Electric. Wagon rebuilding is providing 120 additional container flats and 200 cement hoppers.
Australia: National Rail Corp has ordered 10 side-tipping wagons from Evans Deakin Industries subsidiary Clyde Engineering at a cost of A$1·5m. They will be built at its Port Augusta works, which was acquired when Clyde won a 10-year contract to maintain Australia Southern Railroad's fleet.
Queensland Rail has ordered four three-car interurban EMUs from Walkers-Adtranz Pty Ltd for A$38m, exercising an option in an earlier A$216m order for 90 EMU cars.
Canada: VIA Rail Canada has awarded CAE Railway Technologies & Services a C$10m contract to maintain loco and coach bogies at CAE's Montréal plant.
China: Microphor Co of the USA, a subsidiary of MotivePower Industries, has been awarded a contract to supply 306 toilet systems for coaches ordered from Changchun Car Co by the Chengdu and Kunming railway administrations.
Czech Republic: Contracts for upgrading the 22 km Lovosice - Usti nad Labem section of the Decin - Praha main line have been awarded to ZS Praha.
France: On March 5 SNCF Managing Director Passsenger Services Guillaume Pepy announced that bids will be called for a fleet of diesel locos to replace Class 68000 and 68500 between 2005 and 2010. SNCF has already invited bids for re-engining 20 of its Class 72000 C-Cs (RG 3.99 p159).
Great Britain: Union Railways South Ltd has awarded a £85m civils contract to a joint venture of Hochtief and Norwest Holst. It covers the 20 km Boxley - Lenham Heath section of the Channel Tunnel Rail Link, with 25 bridges and 1 km of cut-and-cover.
ScotRail has increased its order for Class 170 Turbostars with Adtranz from 15 to 24 three-car DMUs at a cost of £30m for services between Glasgow, Edinburgh and Aberdeen from September 1999.
First Engineering has won a five-year £330m infrastructure maintenance contract covering Railtrack's Scotland Zone, starting on April 1.
International: Sitarail is to call tenders for an optic fibre telecommunications system on the Abidjan - Ouagadougou line in Côte d'Ivoire and Burkina Faso. Funding is being provided by the International Development Association.
Mexico: Ferromex has awarded Harmon Industries of the USA a US$3m contract to install hot box detectors on six routes totalling 2000 km. Work is expected to take eight months to complete, finishing in the third quarter of 1999.
Singapore: Land Transport Authority has awarded Motorola a S$33·7m contract to supply a digital radio communications system to be operational by 2002, and covering the MRT network, including the Changi Airport line.
Spain: GIF is to call tenders for the construction of seven subsections of the Madrid - Barcelona high speed line between Lleida and Martorell, with a total length of 86·3 km and a budget of Pts3·96bn. This includes 6 km of bridges and 6·8 km of tunnels.
A consortium of Vías y Contrucciones and José Martín has been awarded a Pts549m contract by the Ministry of Development to build a freight terminal at El Sequero, replacing the Renfe facility next to Logroño station.
Switzerland: Yverdon - Ste Croix Railway has ordered two Be2/6 low-floor three-section LRVs from Stadler-Fahrzeuge AG for SFr9m, with electrical equipment from Adtranz Switzerland.
Bombardier subsidiary Vevey Technologies is to supply three articulated railcars to the Bex-Villars-Bretaye Railway and two to the Aigle-Ollon-Monthey-Champéry Railway.
USA: Greenbrier has won orders worth a total of $120m for 1700 wagons, including 1000 27m flat wagons for TTX, which now has 2500 of these vehicles on order from Greenbrier.
Union Switch & Signal has been awarded a $45m contract to signal the Plano and Garland extensions of the Dallas Area Rapid Transit network (RG 12.98 p871). The 38·4route-km will be equipped with Microlok II interlockings.
Chicago Transit Authority has ordered a C$3m fleet scheduling system from GIRO Inc of Canada, which will also analyse staff rostering and ridership.
New York CTA has called tenders for four diesel-powered snow clearers, with rotary auger and impeller blower to move up to 2500 tonnes of snow per hour up to 30m from the track.
Mott MacDonald of Great Britain has won a contract to provide technical consultancy for the East Side Access project to bring Long Island Rail Road services into Grand Central Terminal. Mott MacDonald will advise on tunnel design and construction engineering for the route, which will include over 6 km of bores in hard and soft ground.
