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• Skanksa has obtained a $382.9 million design-build contract from the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority for a seven-mile light-rail extension in southern California. The new contract is the company’s first transit project in southern California and its largest project on the U.S. West Coast, according to Skanksa. The design-build work will be performed in a joint venture with Rados, with 70 percent to be completed by Skanksa, according to the firm.

• Sumitomo Corp. of America and its car-builder partner Nippon Sharyo have obtained a $53 million contract from Toronto's Metrolinx to supply 12 diesel multiple units (DMUs) for the Air Rail Link express rail service, which is expected to be operational by 2015. The contract includes an option for Metrolinx to purchase up to an additional six cars; if the full option is exercised, the contract’s total value would be $75 million. Slated for delivery in 2014, the units will be the Sumitomo-Nippon Sharyo team’s first vehicle delivery to Canada.

• Bombardier Transportation has opened a wheel center at its plant in Siegen, Germany. The company anticipates producing about 1,700 wheelsets in the first year and up to 10,000 annually by 2013, said Bombardier officials in a prepared statement. "As soon as production capacity exceeds our own requirements, we will offer wheelsets from Siegen on the European market," said Bart Vantorre, head of Bombardier's Bogies Business Unit.

• Gannett Fleming named Martha Averso assistant director of the facilities division. A vice president in the firm’s Harrisburg, Pa., headquarters, Averso will be responsible for oversight of structural engineering, civil/site development and 3D-plus information modeling. She has been "instrumental in the growth of Gannett Fleming's structural operations," having managed projects for mass transit facilities, tunnels, parking structures, bridges, and water and wastewater treatment facilities, according to company officials. Averso has served the firm for more than 25 years and also is national structural practice manager.

• URS Corp. has appointed Bob Holt senior vice president and national director of program and construction management, and Jack Waldron, senior VP and national director of transportation design-build projects. Holt previously served as VP of program and construction management at Jacobs Engineering, where he led programs in facilities, federal, environmental, certain industrial and other markets. Waldron, previously the firm's VP of design-build for the west group since 2006, will lead URS' design-build practice for all transportation modes. He has held key assignments on some of the company’s largest transportation planning and design projects.

• Racine Railroad Products Inc. announced three recent appointments and an exclusive distribution agreement. The company named Steve Ries national sales manager, responsible for the ride-on maintenance-of-way equipment products and customer service department in Racine, Wis.; and Chan Krause, field sales and service manager of portable powered hand-tool equipment products and field-service support in Brainerd, Minn. The company also appointed North American Equipment Sales Ltd. as its sales agent for Canada, and announced an exclusive distribution agreement with R-Solutions in Denver to provide turn-key solutions for field sales, service and machine application of their U.S. and Canadian chemical tie products.