General Electric (GE.N) and Alstom (ALSO.PA) have won contracts worth a combined $5.6 billion to supply India’s railways with new locomotives, as the vast but dilapidated state-owned network looks to foreign companies to help it modernise. France’s Alstom has been picked to supply 800 electric locomotives and will also build a factory in the eastern state of Bihar, railways spokesman Anil Saxena told Reuters on Tuesday.