Earlier this year, the hub of Europe's railway network moved well to the east as 10 countries, formerly part of the Soviet Union, accessed to the European Union.

The countries are Cyprus, the Czech and Slovak Republics, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland and Slovenia.

This near-doubling in size of the EU is matched by its plans to improve railways throughout Europe led by 10 so-called Helsinki Corridors, intermodal road and rail links that will provide fast and reliable passenger and freight transport throughout the region with links eastward to Asia.

Today, the Czech Republic stands at the crossroads of Europe. It straddles the north/south Helsinki corridor that will run from Gdansk on Poland's Baltic coast, between the Alps and the Carpathian mountains to Ploce on the Adriatic coast of Croatia; and the route from western Europe to the Russian plains. It is also on the route of Trans European corridor IV that runs from Berlin to Istanbul. Viktor Meca, spokesman for the Ministry of Transport of the Czech Republic told RII that the ministry's basic priority is the modernisation of the main rail tracks in the national transit corridors and modernisation of the regional network to bring them in line with the many programmes initiated by the EU such as the trans-European transport network (TETN), trans-European networks (TEN) and transport infrastructure needs assessment (TINA). There is much to do. The country's rail network is, after Switzerland, the densest network in Europe.

"A track electrification programme will be implemented gradually, mainly on tracks in the transit corridors and tracks that have international significance. But the extent of this work will depend on there being a surplus of electricity capacity in Europe and the Czech Republic."

This could depend on the final performance of the country's Temelin nuclear power station with its 2 000 MW of installed capacity, the largest power resource in the Czech Republic.

Meca says: "The construction of high-speed tracks by the original target of 2010, as part of the Europe-wide network, is felt to be unrealistic at the moment, but the land for each corridor is already part of territorial plans. In time, the EU wants to guarantee a travel time close to four hours for the 280 km trip between Berlin and Prague with trains running at two-hour intervals."

The Czech Republic is also behind in the implementation of the European Rail Transport Management System (ERTMS) although Meca expects a 200 km pilot project of the radio communication system GSM-R to be developed this year by the Vienna-based telecommunications company Kapsch Group and a pilot scheme to be implemented for the European Train Control System (ETCS) level 2 for train protection. At the moment, of the near-10 000 km of track in the country, just over a third has train radio and automatic block train protection.

The Slovak Republic is also claiming to be on the crossroads of Europe, although the country does not have such a clear run to the east because of the barrier of the Carpathian Mountains. Dusan Turanovic, general director of the Department of Railways in the Ministry of Transport, Posts and Telecommunications, said: "Early on, Slovakia became aware of the importance of adapting its transportation network to present world needs. It has run an ambitious project and should have electrified the entire rail system by the year 2010 and added a supplementary high-speed rail system between Bratislava and Vienna Airport and to Poland and the Ukraine. This Department works closely with the country's Transport Research Institute (TRI). Its research activities cover engineering and technology, operation, economy, legislation, management and tourism."

While the Czech and Slovak Republics occupy strategic positions in the expanded European Union, Poland is important because of its size. Geographically, it is the largest country of the 10 to join the EU and is the gateway from western Europe to the Baltic and to the east. It is a scene of major changes in the railway sector.

The first stage of the Polish State Railways' (PKP) restructuring has been completed. The most important was the formation of a number of companies derived from the PKP. Some of them will be the subject of privatisation. A number of municipalities are interested in getting foreign help in running local services.

Winning businesses in this sector requires imagination and patience, but the potential prospects are huge. Many Polish airports have large development plans. The road distribution network is already stretched, with increasing demands being made on it by foreign retailers including hypermarkets, so rail opportunities exist in this area.

Decades of growth

We are decades away from a scenario where the new entrants to the EU will resemble their western partners. Whether that is a good thing or not is open to debate. Just how far should national characteristics be merged into a pan-European one-size-fits-all template? But, whatever the answer, the new countries represent a wealth of opportunities for development. Many have moved to privatise their rail systems so management will reflect the western pattern.

This is not exactly news to many western companies that have been working in eastern Europe for some time and are well established. But the availability of European money will cause change as their strategic thinking and forward planning can now be implemented.

Planning will also be shaped by EU policy. On 3rd March this year, the European Commission adopted its third package of railway development. This is designed to revitalise European railways ready for a gradual opening up of the market for international passenger services.

As with all things European, this means harmonisation of operating standards and working practices with intermodality that will ultimately lead to a unified transport system across the continent. Different railway systems will have to become technically interoperable in order to meet the contemporary requirements of safety and environment protection, to increase railway carrying capacity and to harmonise the running speed of trains.

The details have been decided by the Transport Infrastructure Needs Assessment (TINA) an initiative that assesses the needs of the candidate countries and which has specified investment levels for the new entry. The opportunities are increased by the variations in development of each country's rail system.

Technology the key

A key issue: the European Rail Traffic Management System (ERTMS); and its subsets, the radio communication system GSM-R and the control and command system ETCS, are essential to theTrans-European Transport Network (TETN) by enabling interoperability throughout the European Rail Network. But each new country is at a different stage of implementation.

GSM-R is a 4 MHz frequency bandwidth for uplink and downlink GSM (900 MHz) radio communications specific to the railway industry. It provides interoperability between railway networks, higher efficiency, lower operating costs and high availability. Besides staff communication it can be used to carry passenger information and to provide remote control of trains. This will save the time and cost of trains being fitted with several different systems and having to switch systems at border crossings.

While there are many plans and targets for European railways, the new countries could find it difficult to fund the necessary investment because of the EU Stability Pact. This was created at the EU's initiative in 1999 'to foster peace, democracy, respect for human rights and economic prosperity in order to achieve stability in the whole region'. It is based on experiences and lessons from worldwide international crisis management and is the first serious attempt by the international community to replace the previous, reactive crisis intervention policy in South Eastern Europe with a comprehensive,long-term conflict prevention strategy.

Under it, eurozone members agree to keep their deficits below a critical threshold but this has led to restrictions on government expenditure and a need to find new methods of financing rail infrastructure and rolling stock. But that, in turn, means new opportunities for leasing companies.

So while Europe has a new crossroads, there are plenty of signposts indicating to all involved in the rail industry which track to take.