News /
PKP buys Alstrom Pendolino trains for € 665 million [60]
* The modified Pendolinos bought by Poland are missing their signature ability.
The thing is that it also requires significant upgrading of the line to incorporate the infrastructure that allows the Pendolino to tilt. It's a very expensive undertaking, yet isn't really required on huge parts of the Polish rail network. The price of extra speed also comes at the expense of capacity, which would have a knock-on effect on PKP Cargo. So - from a transport point of view, it's no big deal. What's much more important is to get the CMK upgraded to 250km/h operation sooner rather than later.
* Their top speed is 200km/h, up from 160km/h achieved by polish trains in the 80's.
Correct, although the CMK was and is capable of operating at 250km/h if the money is spent on installing ECTS Level 2. They're getting there, but it's a hugely difficult and complicated process to change signalling. A good comparison is with the Cambrian Line in the UK, which had significant problems with signalling despite being much easier to replace. It will happen, but Poland needs to spend money elsewhere first.
For what it's worth, I think the Pendolino (or strictly speaking, ED250) is already certified for 250km/h operation.
They can't muster deposits of this size within 30 days.
That's absolutely normal. It's designed to stop companies from putting in bids that they can't really finance. It's a guarantee, not a deposit - so if the contractor fails to perform, the company can use the deposit to pay for the new tendering process. But 1-3% is easy enough to obtain if you've got a serious chance of winning the contract.
What's normal in construction is that the Polish company will enter some sort of consortium agreement with a foreign company - the foreign company will provide the capital, the Polish company provides the know-how and it generally works well.
As for rails, PKP had an opportunity to modernize them, allowing for high speed travel.
Yes, as rail has been systematically run down and neglected since the start of the 1990's. From memory, I think it was the Leszno-Głogów line that was limited to 20km/h because of how destroyed the track was. Many others needed total renewal, such as Jaslo-Zagorz in Bieszczady.
Even lines such as Wrocław-Przemyśl have had to undergo a huge, huge amount of work.
Those tenders have to be decided within 30 days, which seems designed to eliminate Polish companies.
30 days is nothing abnormal for tenders.
It's worth pointing out that Urban's NIE is not free of bias - it obviously isn't mentioning that the SLD were very much responsible for letting rail run into the ground in Poland.
