FOLLOWING a campaign by Puglia regional president Mr Michele Emiliano and the local media, Trenitalia has confirmed that it will extend its Milan - Bologna - Bari Frecciarossa service launched in September to Lecce.
INDONESIA's National Development Planning Ministry says an offer has been accepted from a Chinese consortium to build a new 140km railway between Jakarta and Bandung after Japanese bidders were forced to concede that they could not meet Indonesia's demands for no-strings finance for the $US 5bn project.
A STUDY commissioned by Dutch infrastructure manager Prorail has found that the quality of concrete used on some parts of the HSL South high-speed line between Amsterdam and the Belgian border may be of inferior quality and the technical life of some structures could be considerably shorter than originally envisaged.
THE Valladolid - Palencia - León high-speed line was opened to traffic on September 30, a day after it was officially inaugurated by Spanish prime minister Mr Mariano Rajoy and less than a week after the opening date was confirmed.
FRENCH National Railways (SNCF) began dynamic testing on the second phase of TGV Est on September 28, when a 10-car TGV Duplex set ran at speeds of up to 160km/h over the 106km extension from Baudrecourt to Vendenheim.
HIGH-SPEED test running started on the German Rail (DB) network on September 25 of the first of a fleet of ICx trains being built by Siemens.
THE Spanish Ministry of Public Works and Transport confirmed this week that the 162.7km Valladolid - Palencia - León high-speed line will be officially inaugurated on September 29.
BRITAIN's chancellor of the exchequer Mr George Osborne announced on September 24 that HS2 Ltd has begun the prequalification process for seven major civil works contracts for the initial 190km phase of High-Speed 2 from London to Birmingham and a junction with the West Coast Main Line (WCML) near Lichfield.
THE board of Amtrak is believed to have selected Alstom to negotiate a contract to supply a fleet of high-speed trains as part of Amtrak's $US 2.5bn project to upgrade the Northeast Corridor linking Boston, New York and Washington DC.
FRECCIAROSSA ETR 500 high-speed trains are now running from Milan to Bari in southeastern Italy for the first time following the replacement of a Frecciabianca train on a daily round trip.
