Small improvement goes a long way

Date: 02/05/1996

UNLIKE most of the EU, where transport infrastructure projects need to be huge to make appreciable differences to the Union's economy, relatively minor changes can make all the difference in the east.

Some of the CEECs and former Soviet republics are so far behind in infrastructural provision that small improvements can make huge differences.

The 1,830-kilometre Berlin-Warsaw-Minsk-Moscow road and rail corridor is a case in point. Costing 2.7 billion ecu in total, only 900 million ecu has been allocated to increasing speed on the Russian and Belarus rail tracks - but the effects could be huge.

Adtranz, the railway equipment manufacturer created out of ABB Daimler-Benz Transportation, is carrying out a technical study into how to increase rolling stock speeds on the railway from the paltry

40-60 kilometres per hour up to so-called 'medium-high speed' of 150-250 kilometres per hour.

“Getting up to medium-high speed could be achievable with signalling improvements and some tilting technology for the trains,” said an Adtranz spokesman. “Getting up to medium-high speed would be an improvement of 200&percent; on these lines.”

A memorandum of understanding was signed in January 1995 by the transport ministries of Germany, Poland, Belarus and Russia as well as the Commission.

It is expected to take 15 years to complete the project.