:: My railway system runs a range of LED dot matrix displays using an 8
:: pixel high matrix, and supports multiple languages, but I've
:: been asked
:: to quote for a package extended to provide a Cyrillic font as well.

Since this is off topic, you can email me further off list if you like. I
happne to be a native English spaeker but live in Russia.

:: case Cyrillic letters. Is this the case - in which case I need a few
:: more rows on the displays to cope, or is a 5x7 set of Cyrillic
:: characters practical for information displays as in the
:: Latin font case?

You can do it. What is often done is rever all to one case. In fact -
Russian is not like English wehre we have differnet upper and lower cases,
the differences in Russian between upper and lower are just size, and part
of the reason for the 11 pt requirement. But if you look in any of the
railway stations here with the old type displays - the ones that are dots
are certainly not 11's I guarantee you that and even the old babushki here
can read them.