MILWAUKEE — The Wisconsin Claims Board on Tuesday rejected Canadian Pacific Railway’s request for more than half a million dollars for helping develop a high-speed rail plan before Gov. Scott Walker killed the project.

The board’s decision said the railroad failed to show how the state was negligent. If the railroad wants to pursue payment it should take its arguments to court, the decision said.

Canadian Pacific’s attorney, Brian Baird, didn’t immediately return email and telephone messages Tuesday afternoon.

The railroad wants $500,715 for work performed in 2009 and 2010 to help Wisconsin prepare a bid for federal funding to build the line between Madison and Milwaukee. The railroad’s attorney, Brian Baird, told the board at a hearing this month that Canadian Pacific workers developed construction plans and depot designs and even moved into the state Department of Transportation offices to help the agency. But Walker, a Republican, scrapped the project shortly after he won election to his first term in 2010, saying the line would be too expensive to maintain. Canadian Pacific was never paid.

Transportation officials argued they owe the railroad nothing because it never entered into a written contact with the state. Baird has said the railroad undertook the work without a deal in place because then-Gov. Jim Doyle, a Democrat, had asked for help and the company wanted to be a corporate citizen. Democrats had touted the line as a major job creator and were pushing to get work underway ahead of the 2010 election.