Australia: Australia Southern Railroad has purchased 16 Class 422 locomotives of 2000hp from FreightCorp of New South Wales, to haul construction trains on the Alice Springs - Darwin line.
CFCL Australia has ordered 50 container wagons from MacRail Ltd for A$5m. Capable of carrying three 20ft containers at speeds up to 115 km/h, the wagons are being manufactured in China.
Germany: DBCargo has commissioned the first of 155 iron-ore wagons built at a cost of DM41m for use between Hamburg and Salzgitter; they replace wagons owned by Salzgitter AG.
Alstom LHB has handed over the first of 720 Habbins 14 wagons to Transwaggon, bringing the total number of wagons delivered to the leasing company to 4000. The Habbins 14 has a capacity of 173m3 and a payload of 68 tonnes.
Great Britain: Adtranz has awarded AEA Technology a £3·9m contract to install two Integrated Electronic Control Centre workstations at York, to control trains at Leeds where remodelling is currently under way. AEA Technology has recently upgraded IECC hardware and software at Tyneside and York.
India: Indian Railways has ordered 468000 tonnes of rail from Steel Authority of India’s Bhilai plant for delivery in 2000-01, up from 319000 tonnes in 1999-2000.
Italy: Fiat Ferroviaria has ordered 55 sets of electro-hydraulic braking equipment from SAB Wabco for 6·6m euros, to be installed in Cityway LRVs. Up to 200 LRVs are to be produced for Torino and Messina, and SAB Wabco is to deliver sets for five prototypes between October 2000 and January 2001.
Kazakstan: With funding from the European Bank for Reconstruction & Development, KTZ is to call tenders for the supply of track maintenance equipment including sleeper replacement machines and rail grinding equipment.
Romania: With bids from four shortlisted consortia exceeding the budgeted project cost, CFR may launch a second call for tenders for upgrading the Bucuresti - Ploesti main line. The European Investment Bank is prepared to provide US$220m towards the project.
South Africa: SARCC has awarded Adtranz and Transwerk a contract to rebuild 88 Class 5M2A EMU cars for Western Cape services, with Siemens and Union Carriage & Wagon to rebuild 88 for the Witwatersrand network. Costing R400m and taking 21/2 years, the work includes replacing control equipment and fitting new steel bodyshells.
Spain: Renfe has shortlisted Adtranz/ Talgo, Alstom/CAF, AnsaldoBreda and Siemens for its Madrid - Barcelona high speed rolling stock order worth up to Pts110bn. Bids are due by September 29 and award is expected around the end of the year. Bombardier was excluded from the shortlist on the grounds that it lacked experience in this field.
In orders worth Pts6·5bn placed by the Freight business unit, Renfe workshops are to build 160 steel coil, 160 ballast and 100 bulkhead flat wagons by June 2001, as well as 12 tank wagons. The Intermodal business unit has placed Pts2·06bn of orders for 60 wagons with capacity for two 45ft swapbodies, and for 157 twin-axle wagons capable of 120 km/h.
Sweden: In a joint order worth 40m euros, J
