Cash-strapped metro takes delivery of first homemade train
Next stop Warsaw: Poland's first home-built subway car rolls off the line.
The first Polish-made metro train rolled off the assembly line last week in the southern town of Chorzow.
This six-carriage train is the first delivery for the Warsaw Metro from the Chorzow-based factory of Alstom Konstal, which will eventually produce a total of 84 carriages for the city's underground public transport system.
Alstom Konstal, part of multinational firm Alstom, signed the manufacturing contract in 1998. The contract is worth E106 million plus VAT according to Alstom Konstal's vice-president, Stanislaw Michalak.
To build the carriages, the company created a complete metro production line in Chorzow. These new trains are more technologically advanced and comfortable than the 60 Russian carriages currently in operation based on a 1935 design.
The Warsaw Metro already uses four, six-carriage trains that were manufactured by Alstom in its Spanish factory, one of the company's nine European factories. Although these trains have been operating on the metro for the past six months, Alstom is expecting to receive payment for them at the end of March.
The Warsaw Metro, which has always been short of cash, has been facing particularly acute woes since the early 1990s, when the flow of state funds began to close and the city had to take on an increasing share in funding. By the end of 2000, zl. 4.2 billion ($954 million) was spent on the project. This year the Warsaw Metro hopes to receive zl. 330 million ($75 million) from the city and a further zl. 100 million ($22.7 million) from the government.
According to Teresa Kuzminska, press spokeswoman for the Warsaw Metro, the company that runs and supervises the underground, utilization costs are also a burden. Last year maintenance cost zl. 66 million ($15 million) and Kuzminska believes it could reach zl. 78 million ($17.7 million) this year. Although the number of passengers is estimated at 170,000 a day, Municipal Transport Management (ZTM) is not capable of estimating ticket revenue. However, "municipal transport always brings losses," Kuzminska said.
