PBKAL rail project picks up speed on two fronts

Date: 29/02/1996

By Tim Jones

ONE of the EU's most ambitious Trans-European Networks will be given a major push forward in the coming weeks.

The 16-billion-ecu project to build a high-speed rail line linking Paris, Brussels, Köln, Amsterdam and London (PBKAL) has been planned since 1989, but very little has been built.

Of the 868-kilometre network, only the line from Lille to the Channel Tunnel is running.

But following the decision of the UK government to award the concession to build and operate the 3.2-billion-ecu link from London to the Channel Tunnel to London & Continental Railways (LCR), the Dutch and Belgian governments are at long last close to agreeing the route from Amsterdam to Brussels.

LCR, a consortium including Virgin Group and National Express, will build the 108-kilometre British leg of the network. Apart from benefiting from a government subsidy, LCR will also take control of European Passenger Services (EPS), the company that jointly operates the Eurostar service between Brussels-London and Paris-London. This is intended to provide a stream of revenue for the new company, although it will take time to come on tap given EPS' pre-tax losses of 58 million ecu last year.

Meanwhile, in The Hague, the Dutch cabinet is set to agree the route for the Amsterdam to Rotterdam high-speed link on either 15 or 22 March.

The government is faced with the hard choice of agreeing the cheapest route, costing about 2 billion ecu, through the environmentally-sensitive 'Groene Hart' area, or running the track alongside the A4 highway skirting The Hague, Delft and Rotterdam.

Although the latter route will only add two minutes to the high-speed journey, it will increase the bill by millions of ecu and add a year to the construction work, which is not due to start until 1998 anyway.

The second leg of the line from Rotterdam to Antwerp is even more problematic since it involves negotiations with not only the Belgian federal government, but also that of Flanders.

The Belgians had wanted a direct route to Antwerp but the Dutch pressed to include Breda and Dordrecht in the link, adding more than 20 kilometres to the track in Belgium.

The Belgian government has sought compensation, totalling as much as 250 million ecu, plus a share in operating profits. A high-level meeting of the Belgian and Dutch transport ministries has been called for mid-March to agree on the amount the Belgians want.