RUSSIAN Railways (RZD) has strongly denied claims in the Russian press that its high-speed railway construction programme has been cancelled.

A ceremony was held on August 18 to mark the start of construction of last remaining 21km segment of the 143km Nagasaki – Hakata Shinkansen between Isahaya and Nagasaki.

A full-size mock-up of Trenitalia's forthcoming ETR 1000 Frecciarossa emu was unveiled at the Rimini Meeting festival on August 19 by Italian prime minister Mr Mario Monti.

TWO subsidiaries of Italian State Railways (FS), Italferr and Italcertifer, have been awarded a contract by the Saudi-Spanish Al Shoula consortium to act as safety verification engineers for the second phase of the Haramain high-speed project in Saudi Arabia.

A ceremony was staged today by French Rail Network (RFF) and Eiffage to mark the start of construction of the 182km Bretagne-Pays de la Loire high-speed line.

ITALY's rail regulator (URSF) has ruled in favour of Italian Rail Network (RFI) in a dispute with open-access high-speed operator NTV over the recent erection of a fence at Rome Ostiense which prevents NTV passengers walking directly from NTV's lounge to their train on the adjacent platform 15.

JAPAN's minister of transport Mr Yuichiro Hata has approved the construction of three extensions to the Shinkansen high-speed network. The project will cost an estimated Yen 3.04 trillion ($US 38.1bn) and will be mainly funded by national and municipal governments.

The dispute between Italian open-access high-speed operator NTV and infrastructure manager Italian Railway Network (RFI) has taken a further turn after NTV took out full page advertisements in the Corriere della Sera and Repubblica newspapers on July 9 calling on the government intervene.

IRJ at the UIC 8th World Congress on High Speed Rail, Philadelphia: The president of French National Railways (SNCF) Mr Guillaume Pepy today called for the construction of a second high-speed line between Paris and Lyon to relieve congestion on the existing railway.

THE Indian state of Kerala plans to start work in April 2013 on the first phase of a Rs 1180bn ($US 21.3bn) project to build a 560km standard-gauge line with a maximum speed of 350km/h along the coast from Trivandrum north to Kasaragod by 2021.