In brief


HE first of two inquiries into flaws discovered in the evaluation of bids for Britain’s InterCity West Coast (ICWC) franchise


commissioned by transport secretary Mr Patrick McLoughlin published its initial findings at the end of October.


The inquiry, which is being conducted by a team led by Mr Sam Laidlaw, CEO of Centrica and a non-executive director of the Department for Transport (DfT), was due to be completed by the end of November.


Initial West Coast report uncovers more flaws T


“In seeking to run a


complex and novel franchising competition process, an accumulation of significant errors resulted in a flawed process,” says Laidlaw. “These errors appear to have been caused by factors including inadequate planning and preparation, a complex organisational structure and a weak governance and quality assurance framework.” Many of the errors centre


around the model used to determine the amount of risk capital, the so-called subordinated loan facility


Poland


(SLF), the four bidders were asked to provide to guard against the risk of default. Laidlaw says that the DfT was aware of a lack of transparency in the process for determining the SLF but decided to continue with the franchise process and to accept the risk of a bidder challenge. Bidders were not provided with adequate information reliably to predict the likely size of any SLF requirement to be imposed by the DfT, which made it difficult for bidders to determine the optimal capital structure for their bids.


The European Commission has launched infringement proceedings against the Polish government in the European Court of Justice for failure to fully implement EU legislation on interoperability. European Directive 2011/18/EU should have been fully and correctly transposed into Polish law by December 31 2011 at the latest.


Portugal


The International Monetary Fund has suggested establishing a new company which would manage the locomotives and rolling stock operated by state-owned freight operator CP Carga. A study outlining options for the privatisation of CP Carga is due to be published in the second quarter of next year.


Serbia


Porr, Austria, has opened its new €5.6m concrete sleeper factory at Svilajnac, 100km south of Belgrade. The plant was financed by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, and will produce around 100,000 sleepers per year.


Spain


Mr Antonio Aguilar has been appointed as the new president of metre-gauge operator Feve, replacing Mr Marcelino Oreja, who has stood down after just eight months in the role.


EIB to finance Polish infrastructure upgrades: The European Investment Bank (EIB) has agreed to provide Polish infrastructure manager PKP PLK with two loans worth a total of ƒ165m to upgrade two sections of line. ƒ100m will be used to finance the modernisation of a 58km stretch of the Warsaw - Lodz line between Warsaw Zachodnia and Miedniewice, which will be upgraded for 160km/h operation, together with resignalling of the 42km Miedniewice - Lodz Widzew section. The remaining ƒ65m will support the upgrading of the Poznan - Czempin line (pictured) for 160km/h operation. This is the second phase of the modernisation of the 64km Poznan - Wroclaw line, which is due to be completed by 2016. Photo: Keith Fender


RGENTINA’s Ministry of Interior and Transport has taken over for 90 days the freight operations of Belgrano Cargas from Soesa in an effort to improve operations. The railway will be managed by Sofse, a state- owned operator, which has already assembled a team led by Mr Alfredo Cargniello, a


IRJ December 2012


Argentine government takes control of Belgrano Cargas A


former private railway director. The 7347km metre-gauge railway, which links northwestern Argentina with Buenos Aires, was put in the hands of Soesa, a public- private entity, in 2006 following the failure to find a concessionaire. However, Belgrano Cargas has continued to deteriorate. Currently only


Ukraine


Construction is underway on a new double-track, 1822m-long tunnel that will replace the existing 1746m Beskid Tunnel on the Lvov - Chop line in the Carpathian mountains. The tunnel will open in 2015.


United States


5052km of the network is operational and freight traffic has declined steeply from 1.74 million tonnes in 1999 to less than 369,000 tonnes in the first half of this year. The government has promised on several occasions to renovate the railway using Chinese funding, but this has yet to materialise.


177km/h operation was demonstrated in Illinois on October 19 with a high-speed test run between Dwight and Pontiac. The upgrading of this 24km section is part of the $US 2bn modernisation of the Chicago - St Louis line, which is due to be completed by 2015, reducing journey times between the two cities by more than an hour. IRJ


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