Yahoo – AFP, 21 May 2014
Cash-strapped
France will have to trim back some 1,300 rail platforms at a cost of 50 million
euros after realising a brand new fleet of trains are too big to fit its
stations, rail operators admitted Wednesday.
The problem
affects 182 regional trains supplied by French manufacturer Alstom (Paris:
FR0010220475 - news) and 159 from Canada's Bombardier (Toronto: BBD-A.TO -
news) , due to come into service by 2016.
Two state
rail bodies, the Societe Nationale des Chemins de Fer (SNCF) and the Reseau
Ferre de France (RFF), acknowledged the embarrassing situation in a joint
statement on Wednesday after it was revealed by satirical weekly Le Canard
Enchaine.
Introducing
"wider trains in response to the needs of the public requires us to
modernise 1,300 of the 8,700 platforms in the French rail network," they
said.
France's
secretary of state for transport, Frederic Cuvillier, called it a
"tragically comical", "mind-boggling" mix-up, blaming a
lack of coordination between the SNCF and the RFF.
The two
bodies are to be merged into one under reform plans to be unveiled in June.
According
to the Canard Enchaine, the SNCF drew up the specifications for the
new-generation trains, including the carriage width.
"But
the SNCF's clever engineers forgot to check on the reality on the ground,"
where the space between platforms varies between stations.
So far, 300
station platforms have been adapted since work began in 2013, with the project
set for completion in 2016.
"It
can involve chipping a few centimetres off the edge of a platform, or moving an
electricity power box located a bit too close to the platform edge," said
RFF.
"It's
a bit like buying a Ferrari that you want to fit into your garage, but then
realising your garage isn't quite Ferrari-sized, because up until now you
didn't own a Ferrari," it offered by way of analogy.
No comments:
Post a Comment