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German, Russian Railways Look at Polish Freight Carrier
Russian Railways and Deutsche Bahn, the German national railway, are in negotiations for the purchase of a Polish rail freight carrier. The details of the negotiations have nit been made public, but experts say that only the Polish state PKP Cargo could be of interest to the foreign railways. The Russian government is unlikely to approve a deal with it, however, experts add, noting that Russian Railways has more than enough to spend its money on within the country.
The Polish railroads underwent their first round of reforms in 2001, when Polskie Koleje Panstowe (PKP) was divided by specialization into several state companies. PKP Cargo handles freight, PKP Intercity handles national passenger traffic and PKP PR handles commuter traffic. There are 400 km. of 1520-mm. track in Poland. That is the standard used in Russia, the CIS, Finland and Mongolia. That portion of the system is operated by a separate PKP subsidiary, PKP LHS, for transporting ore and is under consideration by the Russian Transportation Ministry for a project to extend wide-gauge track into Europe to Vienna.
PKP Cargo has 20 transfer points and two seaports for transfers of cargo to Sweden and Denmark. The size of its rolling stock has not been made public, but it is known that it was the object of an 800-million zloty (more than ˆ200 million) investment program in 2006. PKP Cargo and PKP LHS hauled combines shipments of 156.5 million tons in 2006, controlling 80percent of the Polish market of 6 billion zloty (about ˆ1.6 billion). PKP Cargo has 2-percent private holdings by CTL Logistics and PCC Rail.
www.kommersant.com
All the Article in Russian as of Oct. 02, 2007
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