Rail supplier news from Thales, Ansaldo STS, RailWorks, SNC-Lavalin, Wabtec, Alstom and Skelly and Loy (July 29)

A Thales/Huawei/Imet consortium has obtained a $40.3 million contract from Morocco's national railway operator, ONCF, for a global system for mobile communications (GSM-R). The system will installed on five lines of Morocco’s railway network. It's the first time a GSM-R system will be installed in the country, according to a Thales press release.

A consortium led by Ansaldo STS and involving TATA Projects and CSR Zhuzhou has obtained a turnkey contract to design, supply, install, test, commission and maintain electromechanical systems for the Navi Mumbai Metro in Maharashtra, India. The complete line will consist of six lines. Expected duration of the construction phase: about two and a half years.

RailWorks Track Systems Inc. supplied and installed 3.85 miles of embedded double-track for Tucson's new Sun Link Streetcar line, including 17 pieces of special trackwork. RailWorks Corp. subsidiary L.K. Comstock National Transit installed six traction power substations and procured, installed and tested the overhead catenary system, signals and low-voltage feeder cables for the substations. The streetcar line was built by Old Pueblo TrackWorks, a joint venture between RailWorks Track Systems and Granite Construction Co.

SNC-Lavalin Group has appointed Marc Rivard executive vice president of infrastructure engineering in the company's Infrastructure Group. Based in Montreal, Rivard will lead the global Infrastructure Engineering business unit. He has more than 27 years of experience and joins SNC-Lavalin after eight years with WSP (previously GENIVAR), where he was president of operations in Canada. Rivard also served Stantec for 19 years.

Wabtec Crop. reported record results for the second quarter, including sales of $731 million, 15 percent higher than the year-ago quarter due to strong growth in both the freight and transit segments. Also, income from operations reached a record $132 million, or 18.1 percent of sales, compared with 17.6 million in the year-ago period. Earnings per diluted share set a record at 91 cents, up 18 percent, and cash flow from operations totaled $111 million, or 15 percent of sales.

Alstom has obtained all homologations by the German Federal Railway Office for its 91 Coradia Lint regional trains — half a year prior to their scheduled start of operations in Germany. Sixty-three trains will be operated by vlexx GmbH and the other 28 trains will be owned by LNVG and operated by erixx GmbH. All 91 diesel multiple units are expected to enter operation as scheduled in December.

After the recent passage of Pennsylvania's transportation funding, Skelly and Loy hired the following new staff to address an increased workload: Dylan Woodworth, environmental scientist/biologist; Emma Ruth, environmental scientist/economist; and Evan Zeiders, environmental scientist.