BRITAIN's chancellor, Mr George Osborne, has announced that more than £1.4bn will be invested in rail projects in an attempt to stimulate the country's ailing economy. The main benefits will be electrification of the Manchester - Leeds mainline, government support to reopen the Oxford - Bletchley line, permission for Southern to acquire 130 emu cars to increase capacity on its network south of London, and limiting train fare increases to 1% above the rate of inflation.

THE president of Algeria, Mr Abdelaziz Bouteflika, has inaugurated train operation on the first section of Line 1 of the Algiers metro. The 9km section has 10 stations and runs from Tafourah Grande Poste in the city centre to Haï el Badr. Algiers Metro Enterprise (EMA) expects the line eventually to carry 300,000 passengers a day.

SAUDI Railways Organisation (SRO) has awarded a Euros 6.74bn contract to Al-Shoula, a Spanish-Saudi consortium, to equip, operate and maintain for 12 years the 450km Haramain high-speed line currently under construction between Mecca, Jeddah and Medina.