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• Ansaldo STS USA has finalized a $13 million subcontract agreement with Wellington Power Corp. of Pittsburgh for the Port Authority of Allegheny County's North Shore Connector project, which involves a 1.2-mile extension to the light-rail system. Ansaldo STS USA will design and implement an interlocking and wayside signal system for new relay rooms at the Allegheny and North Side stations, and modifications to the existing Gateway Station relay room and Wood Street Station interlocking relay room. The company also will deliver a communications subsystem featuring fiber optic transmission, variable message signage, digital video surveillance, and supervisory control and data acquisition. In addition, Ansaldo STS USA will design modifications for the existing Authority Operations Control Center to support the added facilities and equipment.

• Invensys Rail Group subsidiary Westinghouse Rail Systems Australia (WRSA) won a $10.1 million contract from the Australian Rail Track Corporation Ltd. (ARTC) to provide signaling along the North-South Rail Corridor between Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane. WRSA will supply a turnkey signaling system, including design, installation, testing and commissioning, for the Southern Sydney Freight Line, a 22-mile dedicated freight-rail line between Macarthur and Sefton. ARTC is building a third track in the north-couth corridor so freight trains can operate independently from passenger trains.

• HLS Systems International Ltd. obtained a $15 million contract from the China Railway Electrification Bureau Group to provide additional train control centers for the Zhengzhou-Xian high-speed rail project. HLS previously won a similar contract in September 2008 for the same project. The control centers will support centralized train control of the high-speed line connecting Zhengzhou and Xian. To be located at each station along the line, the control centers will generate train-control information and transmit the data to onboard devices. The centers will work together with HLS' automatic train protection on-board devices.

• IBM is working with the Russian Railways to optimize information technology (IT) infrastructure and implement technologies to improve freight- and passenger-rail management systems. IBM is helping the railway migrate its freight/passenger and financial management applications to three new consolidated data centers based on IBM's mainframe technology. Scheduled for completion in 2010, the project will enable the railway to achieve a system reliability and fault-tolerance level of 99.9 percent, as well as reduce operating costs and the capital required for future development, IBM said.

• International rail consultant Interfleet Technology Inc. announced Yosi Grunberg has rejoined the firm. He will be based in Montreal. Yosi previously worked at Interfleet's United Kingdom offices in Derby and London as a senior engineering consultant between 2003 and 2007. He most recently was a project systems engineer for Alstom Transport.