Fast track to Eastern Europe's future
Aug 19th 2007, 10:18 am
#1
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Fast track to Eastern Europe's future
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/6951746.stm
Fast track to Eastern Europe's future
The railways of Eastern Europe are going through a period of great
upheaval including sudden privatisation and modernisation, following
years of neglect. Nick Thorpe took a rail trip through the region to
see for himself.
Poland's first private passenger train is due to launch this autumn
The lady in the brown dress held up the Tihany express.
"Please wait!" she called, as she scuttled down the platform, plastic
bottle in hand. "The children are thirsty."
The pot-bellied signalman breathed the sigh of a man used to taking
orders from women all his life, and sat down heavily on a bench, his
red cap catching the late afternoon sun like a Balkan woodpecker.
The lady filled the bottle from a tap on the platform, hurried back to
the train, handed the water in through the window and waved to the
signalman. He blew his whistle and the train continued, hooting round
Lake Balaton, like an ancient iron goose.
I have witnessed many such scenes this summer on the railways of
Eastern Europe: the solidarity of passengers with one another, the
leniency of ticket collectors and railwaymen.
Despite the general poverty of the railways, the decay and delay,
there is what I can only describe as an old-fashioned socialism on the
railways of Eastern Europe, which the roads have never had.
Europe has shifted its centre of gravity eastwards
Janusz Piechocinski, Transport Consultants Group, Warsaw
People feel the train is genuinely theirs. You notice it most in
summer, beside the Baltic Sea in Poland, Lake Balaton in Hungary or
anywhere where the train is part of the people's holiday.
Children still wave at strangers and strangers cannot resist waving
back. Perhaps that is also why urban youth spend so much effort
spraying their strange designs on the carriages.
Searching for a new model
But this is a time of great change on the tracks of Eastern Europe.
Hungary's Balaton region is a popular tourist destination
The rolling stock is 25 years old on average - the locomotives and
carriages and freight wagons - and companies are competing to replace
them.
The cargo arms of the big state rail companies are being sold off and,
in some countries at least, are already flexing new, private muscles.
This year the rail freight market was liberalised throughout the
European Union and in 2010 passenger traffic will follow. Each country
is trying to avoid the mistakes made by others.
EU money is providing an important boost and so is the increasing
congestion on the roads. The number of lorries on Polish roads alone
has tripled in the past three years.
"Europe has shifted its centre of gravity eastwards," says Janusz
Piechocinski, director of the Transport Consultants Group in Warsaw,
"and we can all gain from the pool of experience here".
To open the vast markets of the former Soviet Union and Asia, he
offers a model: British finance, German logistics and Polish
experience in crossing the eastern borders.
For now, those borders present a major headache to freight companies.
There are two different kinds of documentation, even two different
widths of track (the Russian is wider).
Now President Putin has signalled his intention to privatise the vast
Russian railways.
EU funding
"Will EU players be allowed to participate or only the Germans?"
Piechocinski asks. He is full of questions.
"In a globalised world is there any sense in keeping Hungarian, Czech
and Polish railway companies or would it make sense to put together an
alliance of them to cut costs and restructure?
Map of Poland, Czech Republic and Hungary
"Why concentrate so much EU money on high-speed trains and trans-
European railway corridors, when it might be better spent on
modernising trains and tracks used by most of the population?
"Why is privatisation stagnating in western Europe, but moving ahead
so fast in the east?"
The Poles began privatising their freight transport three years ago
and the first private passenger train will run this autumn. They have
also been the most successful of the East Europeans in tapping EU
funds so far.
Above all, Piechocinski believes in the future.
"We've entered a period of 20 years of prosperity and growth," he
says.
'Slow but safe'
And in Prague, Ales Ondruj, the marketing director of Czech Railways,
is also optimistic.
"Last year we had three million more passengers than in 2005," he
says.
In places, the train is only allowed to travel at 30 miles an hour
The new super-city Pendolino express has shaved hours off the route
from Prague to Ostrava in the east. But he laments the years of
neglect.
"The age of the trains is not the main problem, but the absence in
eastern Europe of the kind of constant upgrading and modernisation you
see in the west."
"We may be slow, but we're safe," says Zbigniew Szafranski of the
Polish rail company, PKP, when I ask about the ponderous progress of
my intercity train from Warsaw to Gdansk.
He explains that the wooden sleepers under the first 40 miles (64km)
of that line are almost destroyed.
In places, the train is only allowed to travel at 30 miles an hour
(50kmph). While the modernisation of north-south routes would be more
important for Poles, EU money is focused more on east-west routes.
He dreams of 180-mile-per-hour trains between Warsaw and Gdansk,
cutting the journey time from five to three hours.
On the train two teenage lads make room for me in an already crowded
carriage. They are on their way to a wind-surfing camp in Hel - don't
laugh - it is a rather pretty spit of sand, stretching out into the
Baltic Sea.
Will East European railway hospitality survive privatisation?
One can only hope.
>From Our Own Correspondent was broadcast on Saturday 18 August, 2007
at 1130 BST on BBC Radio 4. Please check the programme schedules for
World Service transmission times.
Fast track to Eastern Europe's future
The railways of Eastern Europe are going through a period of great
upheaval including sudden privatisation and modernisation, following
years of neglect. Nick Thorpe took a rail trip through the region to
see for himself.
Poland's first private passenger train is due to launch this autumn
The lady in the brown dress held up the Tihany express.
"Please wait!" she called, as she scuttled down the platform, plastic
bottle in hand. "The children are thirsty."
The pot-bellied signalman breathed the sigh of a man used to taking
orders from women all his life, and sat down heavily on a bench, his
red cap catching the late afternoon sun like a Balkan woodpecker.
The lady filled the bottle from a tap on the platform, hurried back to
the train, handed the water in through the window and waved to the
signalman. He blew his whistle and the train continued, hooting round
Lake Balaton, like an ancient iron goose.
I have witnessed many such scenes this summer on the railways of
Eastern Europe: the solidarity of passengers with one another, the
leniency of ticket collectors and railwaymen.
Despite the general poverty of the railways, the decay and delay,
there is what I can only describe as an old-fashioned socialism on the
railways of Eastern Europe, which the roads have never had.
Europe has shifted its centre of gravity eastwards
Janusz Piechocinski, Transport Consultants Group, Warsaw
People feel the train is genuinely theirs. You notice it most in
summer, beside the Baltic Sea in Poland, Lake Balaton in Hungary or
anywhere where the train is part of the people's holiday.
Children still wave at strangers and strangers cannot resist waving
back. Perhaps that is also why urban youth spend so much effort
spraying their strange designs on the carriages.
Searching for a new model
But this is a time of great change on the tracks of Eastern Europe.
Hungary's Balaton region is a popular tourist destination
The rolling stock is 25 years old on average - the locomotives and
carriages and freight wagons - and companies are competing to replace
them.
The cargo arms of the big state rail companies are being sold off and,
in some countries at least, are already flexing new, private muscles.
This year the rail freight market was liberalised throughout the
European Union and in 2010 passenger traffic will follow. Each country
is trying to avoid the mistakes made by others.
EU money is providing an important boost and so is the increasing
congestion on the roads. The number of lorries on Polish roads alone
has tripled in the past three years.
"Europe has shifted its centre of gravity eastwards," says Janusz
Piechocinski, director of the Transport Consultants Group in Warsaw,
"and we can all gain from the pool of experience here".
To open the vast markets of the former Soviet Union and Asia, he
offers a model: British finance, German logistics and Polish
experience in crossing the eastern borders.
For now, those borders present a major headache to freight companies.
There are two different kinds of documentation, even two different
widths of track (the Russian is wider).
Now President Putin has signalled his intention to privatise the vast
Russian railways.
EU funding
"Will EU players be allowed to participate or only the Germans?"
Piechocinski asks. He is full of questions.
"In a globalised world is there any sense in keeping Hungarian, Czech
and Polish railway companies or would it make sense to put together an
alliance of them to cut costs and restructure?
Map of Poland, Czech Republic and Hungary
"Why concentrate so much EU money on high-speed trains and trans-
European railway corridors, when it might be better spent on
modernising trains and tracks used by most of the population?
"Why is privatisation stagnating in western Europe, but moving ahead
so fast in the east?"
The Poles began privatising their freight transport three years ago
and the first private passenger train will run this autumn. They have
also been the most successful of the East Europeans in tapping EU
funds so far.
Above all, Piechocinski believes in the future.
"We've entered a period of 20 years of prosperity and growth," he
says.
'Slow but safe'
And in Prague, Ales Ondruj, the marketing director of Czech Railways,
is also optimistic.
"Last year we had three million more passengers than in 2005," he
says.
In places, the train is only allowed to travel at 30 miles an hour
The new super-city Pendolino express has shaved hours off the route
from Prague to Ostrava in the east. But he laments the years of
neglect.
"The age of the trains is not the main problem, but the absence in
eastern Europe of the kind of constant upgrading and modernisation you
see in the west."
"We may be slow, but we're safe," says Zbigniew Szafranski of the
Polish rail company, PKP, when I ask about the ponderous progress of
my intercity train from Warsaw to Gdansk.
He explains that the wooden sleepers under the first 40 miles (64km)
of that line are almost destroyed.
In places, the train is only allowed to travel at 30 miles an hour
(50kmph). While the modernisation of north-south routes would be more
important for Poles, EU money is focused more on east-west routes.
He dreams of 180-mile-per-hour trains between Warsaw and Gdansk,
cutting the journey time from five to three hours.
On the train two teenage lads make room for me in an already crowded
carriage. They are on their way to a wind-surfing camp in Hel - don't
laugh - it is a rather pretty spit of sand, stretching out into the
Baltic Sea.
Will East European railway hospitality survive privatisation?
One can only hope.
>From Our Own Correspondent was broadcast on Saturday 18 August, 2007
at 1130 BST on BBC Radio 4. Please check the programme schedules for
World Service transmission times.
Aug 19th 2007, 6:50 pm
#2
Guest
Posts: n/a
Re: michaelnewport pastes his stuff Nothing much to say for himself
"Have a Safe & Gorgeous trip" <[email protected]> a �crit dans le
message de news:[email protected] ups.com...
> http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programme...nt/6951746.stm
>
> Fast track to Eastern Europe's future
>
> The railways of Eastern Europe are going through a period of great
> upheaval including sudden privatisation and modernisation, following
> years of neglect. Nick Thorpe took a rail trip through the region to
> see for himself.
>
> Poland's first private passenger train is due to launch this autumn
>
> The lady in the brown dress held up the Tihany express.
>
> "Please wait!" she called, as she scuttled down the platform, plastic
> bottle in hand. "The children are thirsty."
>
> The pot-bellied signalman breathed the sigh of a man used to taking
> orders from women all his life, and sat down heavily on a bench, his
> red cap catching the late afternoon sun like a Balkan woodpecker.
>
> The lady filled the bottle from a tap on the platform, hurried back to
> the train, handed the water in through the window and waved to the
> signalman. He blew his whistle and the train continued, hooting round
> Lake Balaton, like an ancient iron goose.
>
> I have witnessed many such scenes this summer on the railways of
> Eastern Europe: the solidarity of passengers with one another, the
> leniency of ticket collectors and railwaymen.
>
> Despite the general poverty of the railways, the decay and delay,
> there is what I can only describe as an old-fashioned socialism on the
> railways of Eastern Europe, which the roads have never had.
>
>
> Europe has shifted its centre of gravity eastwards
> Janusz Piechocinski, Transport Consultants Group, Warsaw
>
> People feel the train is genuinely theirs. You notice it most in
> summer, beside the Baltic Sea in Poland, Lake Balaton in Hungary or
> anywhere where the train is part of the people's holiday.
>
> Children still wave at strangers and strangers cannot resist waving
> back. Perhaps that is also why urban youth spend so much effort
> spraying their strange designs on the carriages.
>
> Searching for a new model
>
> But this is a time of great change on the tracks of Eastern Europe.
>
> Hungary's Balaton region is a popular tourist destination
>
> The rolling stock is 25 years old on average - the locomotives and
> carriages and freight wagons - and companies are competing to replace
> them.
>
> The cargo arms of the big state rail companies are being sold off and,
> in some countries at least, are already flexing new, private muscles.
>
> This year the rail freight market was liberalised throughout the
> European Union and in 2010 passenger traffic will follow. Each country
> is trying to avoid the mistakes made by others.
>
> EU money is providing an important boost and so is the increasing
> congestion on the roads. The number of lorries on Polish roads alone
> has tripled in the past three years.
>
> "Europe has shifted its centre of gravity eastwards," says Janusz
> Piechocinski, director of the Transport Consultants Group in Warsaw,
> "and we can all gain from the pool of experience here".
>
> To open the vast markets of the former Soviet Union and Asia, he
> offers a model: British finance, German logistics and Polish
> experience in crossing the eastern borders.
>
> For now, those borders present a major headache to freight companies.
> There are two different kinds of documentation, even two different
> widths of track (the Russian is wider).
>
> Now President Putin has signalled his intention to privatise the vast
> Russian railways.
>
> EU funding
>
> "Will EU players be allowed to participate or only the Germans?"
> Piechocinski asks. He is full of questions.
>
> "In a globalised world is there any sense in keeping Hungarian, Czech
> and Polish railway companies or would it make sense to put together an
> alliance of them to cut costs and restructure?
>
> Map of Poland, Czech Republic and Hungary
>
> "Why concentrate so much EU money on high-speed trains and trans-
> European railway corridors, when it might be better spent on
> modernising trains and tracks used by most of the population?
>
> "Why is privatisation stagnating in western Europe, but moving ahead
> so fast in the east?"
>
> The Poles began privatising their freight transport three years ago
> and the first private passenger train will run this autumn. They have
> also been the most successful of the East Europeans in tapping EU
> funds so far.
>
> Above all, Piechocinski believes in the future.
>
> "We've entered a period of 20 years of prosperity and growth," he
> says.
>
> 'Slow but safe'
>
> And in Prague, Ales Ondruj, the marketing director of Czech Railways,
> is also optimistic.
>
> "Last year we had three million more passengers than in 2005," he
> says.
>
>
> In places, the train is only allowed to travel at 30 miles an hour
> The new super-city Pendolino express has shaved hours off the route
> from Prague to Ostrava in the east. But he laments the years of
> neglect.
>
> "The age of the trains is not the main problem, but the absence in
> eastern Europe of the kind of constant upgrading and modernisation you
> see in the west."
>
> "We may be slow, but we're safe," says Zbigniew Szafranski of the
> Polish rail company, PKP, when I ask about the ponderous progress of
> my intercity train from Warsaw to Gdansk.
>
> He explains that the wooden sleepers under the first 40 miles (64km)
> of that line are almost destroyed.
>
> In places, the train is only allowed to travel at 30 miles an hour
> (50kmph). While the modernisation of north-south routes would be more
> important for Poles, EU money is focused more on east-west routes.
>
> He dreams of 180-mile-per-hour trains between Warsaw and Gdansk,
> cutting the journey time from five to three hours.
>
> On the train two teenage lads make room for me in an already crowded
> carriage. They are on their way to a wind-surfing camp in Hel - don't
> laugh - it is a rather pretty spit of sand, stretching out into the
> Baltic Sea.
>
> Will East European railway hospitality survive privatisation?
>
> One can only hope.
>
>>From Our Own Correspondent was broadcast on Saturday 18 August, 2007
> at 1130 BST on BBC Radio 4. Please check the programme schedules for
> World Service transmission times.
>
message de news:[email protected] ups.com...
> http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programme...nt/6951746.stm
>
> Fast track to Eastern Europe's future
>
> The railways of Eastern Europe are going through a period of great
> upheaval including sudden privatisation and modernisation, following
> years of neglect. Nick Thorpe took a rail trip through the region to
> see for himself.
>
> Poland's first private passenger train is due to launch this autumn
>
> The lady in the brown dress held up the Tihany express.
>
> "Please wait!" she called, as she scuttled down the platform, plastic
> bottle in hand. "The children are thirsty."
>
> The pot-bellied signalman breathed the sigh of a man used to taking
> orders from women all his life, and sat down heavily on a bench, his
> red cap catching the late afternoon sun like a Balkan woodpecker.
>
> The lady filled the bottle from a tap on the platform, hurried back to
> the train, handed the water in through the window and waved to the
> signalman. He blew his whistle and the train continued, hooting round
> Lake Balaton, like an ancient iron goose.
>
> I have witnessed many such scenes this summer on the railways of
> Eastern Europe: the solidarity of passengers with one another, the
> leniency of ticket collectors and railwaymen.
>
> Despite the general poverty of the railways, the decay and delay,
> there is what I can only describe as an old-fashioned socialism on the
> railways of Eastern Europe, which the roads have never had.
>
>
> Europe has shifted its centre of gravity eastwards
> Janusz Piechocinski, Transport Consultants Group, Warsaw
>
> People feel the train is genuinely theirs. You notice it most in
> summer, beside the Baltic Sea in Poland, Lake Balaton in Hungary or
> anywhere where the train is part of the people's holiday.
>
> Children still wave at strangers and strangers cannot resist waving
> back. Perhaps that is also why urban youth spend so much effort
> spraying their strange designs on the carriages.
>
> Searching for a new model
>
> But this is a time of great change on the tracks of Eastern Europe.
>
> Hungary's Balaton region is a popular tourist destination
>
> The rolling stock is 25 years old on average - the locomotives and
> carriages and freight wagons - and companies are competing to replace
> them.
>
> The cargo arms of the big state rail companies are being sold off and,
> in some countries at least, are already flexing new, private muscles.
>
> This year the rail freight market was liberalised throughout the
> European Union and in 2010 passenger traffic will follow. Each country
> is trying to avoid the mistakes made by others.
>
> EU money is providing an important boost and so is the increasing
> congestion on the roads. The number of lorries on Polish roads alone
> has tripled in the past three years.
>
> "Europe has shifted its centre of gravity eastwards," says Janusz
> Piechocinski, director of the Transport Consultants Group in Warsaw,
> "and we can all gain from the pool of experience here".
>
> To open the vast markets of the former Soviet Union and Asia, he
> offers a model: British finance, German logistics and Polish
> experience in crossing the eastern borders.
>
> For now, those borders present a major headache to freight companies.
> There are two different kinds of documentation, even two different
> widths of track (the Russian is wider).
>
> Now President Putin has signalled his intention to privatise the vast
> Russian railways.
>
> EU funding
>
> "Will EU players be allowed to participate or only the Germans?"
> Piechocinski asks. He is full of questions.
>
> "In a globalised world is there any sense in keeping Hungarian, Czech
> and Polish railway companies or would it make sense to put together an
> alliance of them to cut costs and restructure?
>
> Map of Poland, Czech Republic and Hungary
>
> "Why concentrate so much EU money on high-speed trains and trans-
> European railway corridors, when it might be better spent on
> modernising trains and tracks used by most of the population?
>
> "Why is privatisation stagnating in western Europe, but moving ahead
> so fast in the east?"
>
> The Poles began privatising their freight transport three years ago
> and the first private passenger train will run this autumn. They have
> also been the most successful of the East Europeans in tapping EU
> funds so far.
>
> Above all, Piechocinski believes in the future.
>
> "We've entered a period of 20 years of prosperity and growth," he
> says.
>
> 'Slow but safe'
>
> And in Prague, Ales Ondruj, the marketing director of Czech Railways,
> is also optimistic.
>
> "Last year we had three million more passengers than in 2005," he
> says.
>
>
> In places, the train is only allowed to travel at 30 miles an hour
> The new super-city Pendolino express has shaved hours off the route
> from Prague to Ostrava in the east. But he laments the years of
> neglect.
>
> "The age of the trains is not the main problem, but the absence in
> eastern Europe of the kind of constant upgrading and modernisation you
> see in the west."
>
> "We may be slow, but we're safe," says Zbigniew Szafranski of the
> Polish rail company, PKP, when I ask about the ponderous progress of
> my intercity train from Warsaw to Gdansk.
>
> He explains that the wooden sleepers under the first 40 miles (64km)
> of that line are almost destroyed.
>
> In places, the train is only allowed to travel at 30 miles an hour
> (50kmph). While the modernisation of north-south routes would be more
> important for Poles, EU money is focused more on east-west routes.
>
> He dreams of 180-mile-per-hour trains between Warsaw and Gdansk,
> cutting the journey time from five to three hours.
>
> On the train two teenage lads make room for me in an already crowded
> carriage. They are on their way to a wind-surfing camp in Hel - don't
> laugh - it is a rather pretty spit of sand, stretching out into the
> Baltic Sea.
>
> Will East European railway hospitality survive privatisation?
>
> One can only hope.
>
>>From Our Own Correspondent was broadcast on Saturday 18 August, 2007
> at 1130 BST on BBC Radio 4. Please check the programme schedules for
> World Service transmission times.
>
