Speeding up
PKP Intercity (PKP IC), part of the PKP Group, Poland's national railway carrier, wants to develop and handle a network of high-speed railways. The company is currently talking with French and Spanish firms in order to form a consortium which would help realize the scheme.
"We are conducting preliminary talks with firms that could be interested in this kind of cooperation," Czesław Warsewicz, acting president of PKP IC told Rzeczpospolita. "Within half a year, we want to prepare a plan which we will present to the Minister of Infrastructure," he added.
PKP IC plans to have its foreign partners lay the new tracks, which the firm could then operate for a specific period of time. The exact location of the investment will be up to the Polish government, but routes between Warsaw, Łódź, Poznań, and Wrocław have already been tipped as the most economically justifiable. The company is now in the process of purchasing 20 streamlined-body trains which will be introduced into service even before the new track infrastructure is delivered.
The company's plans to modernize Poland's railway infrastructure are partly a reaction to the growing competition from foreign railway firms. The British company Arriva already offers its transport services in Poland and more foreign carriers are going to follow suit. In 2010, Europe's international transportation market will be liberalized, which could result in other national carriers, such as Deutsche Bahn, entering Poland.
"We are already preparing for the market's liberalization through the purchase of engines and carriages as well as modernization of the existing rolling stock," said Adrianna Chibowska, spokesperson for PKP Intercity. "We are making sure the competitors will be afraid of us, and not the other way round," she added.
PKP IC has existed as a separate company within the PKP Group since 2001. At the beginning of this month, in a bid to prepare itself for a Warsaw Stock Exchange debut, PKP IC became a joint-stock company. The firm is set to enter the bourse in 2009 and a maximum of 49 percent of the company's shares will be listed.
