HABTOOR Leighton Group (HLG), the civil works contractor building Qatar's Education City light rail line, has awarded Rail.One a contract to supply its Rheda City ballastless track system for the project.

VOSSLOH is set to expand its track business in South America with the acquisition of a Brazilian switch manufacturer and the formation of a consortium to build a rail switch factory in Argentina.

RAIL.ONE, Germany, is to supply more than 530,000 bi-block concrete sleepers from its Rheda 2000 ballastless track system for installation on the 230km Honam high-speed line in Korea.

THE Australian government has allocated $A 95m ($US 90m) to Australian Rail Track Corporation (ARTC) to support investment in reliability and capacity upgrades on the Adelaide – Perth rail corridor.

SPAIN's Minister for Public Works and Transport has unveiled the first details of the country's plan to extend standard-gauge track from Barcelona to Valencia and the southeast along the Mediterranean coast line.

QUEEN Beatrix of the Netherlands officially inaugurated the 50km Hanze Line at Lelystad station today. The queen then boarded the royal train for Zwolle stopping en route at Dronten and Kampen South.

THE government of Liechtenstein has agreed to commit €45m towards a €90m scheme to upgrade a section of railway in the principality as part of the S-Bahn Flach project, which will see the introduction of half-hourly regular-interval regional services between Feldkirch, Austria, and Buchs in Switzerland.

About one-third of Australia's 8000 or so public level crossings have active warning devices, while the remainder have only passive signs. With several projects underway to fit more level crossings with active devices, Peter Hughes, principal of the Derwent Group, Australia, looks at their benefits, and considers when they are not required.

A consortium of Italian State Railways (FS) subsidiary Italferr, Technital, and IRD Engineering has been awarded a contract worth €5.5m to carry out detailed design for the upgrade of a 60km section of the Zagreb – Rijeka line, which forms part of European Corridor 5b.

The three-year contract, which was signed in Zagreb on November 9, will be 85% financed through European Union pre-accession funds, with the remainder coming from the Croatian government.

The consortium will be responsible for carrying out engineering surveys, environmental impact assessments, traffic studies, and cost-benefit analysis, as well as preparing a funding application for EU financial support for the project. It will also complete a study into track-doubling on the 45km Hrvatski Leskovac – Karlovac section.

Britain's infrastructure manager Network Rail (NR) is undertaking the most comprehensive level crossing elimination and risk assessment programme in Europe. Kevin Smith asked Martin Gallagher, NR's head of level crossings, what the objective of this programme is, and what NR has already achieved.