FOLLOWING months of preparation, the railway world is set to descend on Berlin this month for the leading showpiece in the railway exhibition calendar: InnoTrans which runs from September 20-23. Kevin Smith and Dan Templeton are here to guide you though some of the highlights.

THE president of Italian open-access operator NTV Mr Andrea Faragalli and Mr Michele Viale, managing director of Alstom Italy signed a contract in Rome on September 7 for the supply and maintenance of four additional Pendolino tilting trains.

A joint project to develop the next-generation TGV was launched in Paris on September 7 by Voyages SNCF CEO Mrs Rachel Picard and Mr Jean-Baptiste Eymeoud, president of Alstom France.

GermanRail’s (DB) long distance passenger division has drawn up a strategy to attract 50 million more passengers annually by 2030 in the face of rapidly growing competition from long distance buses and carpooling. Keith Fender reports on how DB is going about achieving this ambitious target.

AMTRAK announced on August 26 that it has awarded Alstom a contract to supply 28 high-speed trains for the Washington DC - New York - Boston Northeast Corridor (NEC), which will replace the existing Acela fleet and provide additional capacity on the 730km route.

HIGH-SPEED testing is underway on the Treviglio - Brescia high-speed line in preparation for the start of commercial operations in December.

CHINA Railways Corporation inaugurated its new standard high-speed EMU, which has been under development since 2012, on the Dalian – Shenyang line on August 15.

THIS week the European Commission (EC) ordered Adif, the Spanish infrastructure manager, to return €141m to the government that it was granted for the construction of a high-speed railway test centre in southern Spain designed to be used for trains at speeds up to 520km/h because it was never built.

EVRAZ has almost completed development of a new rail for use on the planned Moscow - Kazan high-speed line which is intended to have a maximum speed of 400km/h.