THAILAND: State Railway of Thailand has awarded South Korean company LS Electric a 32·7bn won contract to supply signalling for the 177 km railway under construction between Ban Phai and Nong Pok.

UK: DB ESG has expanded its range of digital manufacturing services to include 3D printing using carbon reinforced or flexible polymers as well as various metals.

Travel on the Laos – China Railway is booming as tourists are keen to visit and locals are eager to ride. Peter Janssen reports.

EUROPE: The first of 89 concrete elements which will be assembled to form the 18 km Fehmarn Belt immersed tube rail and road tunnel between Denmark and Germany has been cast at the production site in Rødbyhavn.

BRAZIL: The Alstom Foundation and Instituto Jô Clemente have launched a Virtual Reality for Inclusion initiative which aims to help people with disabilities overcome accessibility obstacles and use urban public transport safely.

MONGOLIA: Progress Rail has delivered the first four of 16 SD70ACe/LW locomotives for the 234 km heavy haul railway which connects the Tavan Tolgoi coal deposits in the Gobi desert to an inland port close to the Chinese border at Gashuun Sukhait.

GERMANY: Siemens Mobility has been awarded its first contact to supply Desiro HS electric multiple-units equipped with holders for transporting skis.

SWITZERLAND: Stadler is delivering new rolling stock as part of the final stage of a programme to increase capacity and accessibility on Bergbahn Lauterbrunnen-Mürren’s metre-gauge railway.

CANADA: The government of Alberta has allocated C$9m for the development of a Passenger Rail Master Plan as a foundation for the development of commuter and regional services to meet the needs of the growing population.

Evolving technologies and changing customer demands are driving change in fare collection, ticketing and payment systems, but railways are just one aspect of an increasingly complex multimodal transport ecosystem, suggests Toma Bačić.

Green Cargo has introduced an intermodal service between Göteborg and the port of Norrköping, with weekday departures carrying trailers, swap bodies and containers. According to Green Cargo Key Account Manager Matilda Hedström, a large volume of goods is currently being transported by road in this corridor, so the operator has ...

UK: Porterbrook Leasing has awarded Tidyco a contract to overhaul and refurbish 444 cab and saloon heating, ventilation and air-conditioning modules from ADtranz/Bombardier Class 170 Turbostar diesel multiple-units operated by East Midlands Railway and CrossCountry.

CHINA: The 125 km Chizhou – Huangshan high speed line through the mountains and valleys of Anhui province opened on April 26.

USA: Spanish wheel lathe and machine tool manufacturer Danobat has acquired Michigan based Delta Wheel Truing Solutions, which designs and manufactures rolling stock wheel re-profiling equipment and has several patents as well as an established customer base.

UK: ‘We want to continuously ensure that as many local people as possible have the opportunity to join the rail industry, regardless of their previous skill set or background’, Lumo Managing Director Martijn Gilbert said when he announced that 95% of the open access operator’s workforce began as apprentices.

USA: Activist hedge fund investor Ancora Holdings has won three seats on the board at Norfolk Southern in a vote at the annual shareholder meeting on May 9, ousting the railroad’s Board Chair, Governance Committee Chair and Compensation Committee Chair.

June’s European elections loomed large over the Connecting Europe Days in Brussels at the start of April, as EU policymakers and industry leaders discussed funding priorities for the next multi-annual framework and the future of the TEN-T network. Nick Kingsley shares his key takeaways.

INTERNATIONAL: Spanish state-owned engineering consultancy Ineco has told Railway Gazette International that the long-proposed Spain – Morocco inter-continental tunnel ’is highly complex and is currently undergoing feasibility studies’.

SOUTH KOREA: Korail put its latest generation of high speed train into commercial service on May 1.

This week’s news from the global railway supply chain.