Greek Railway: Goldair ready to enter passenger services

Great news were, undoubtedly, announced during the annual ceremony of Greek Railways’ Regulation Authority (aka RAS) as the Chief Executive Officer of Rail Cargo Logistics Goldair, Jacques Kiseoglou revealed, that the company has filed an application to RAS in order to obtain a license to provide passenger transport services.

This means that the Greek Railways in our country, for the very first time, will acquire a second player in passenger transport triggering competition in this market, bringing developments in the domestic railway sector.

Goldair’s goal is to securethe license in 2019 allowing the lauch of its services on AthensThessaloniki line, on a daily basis, upon the completion of all necessary infrastructure and systems (telecoms, ETCS, signaling).

As Mr. Kiseoglou noted, a train from Austria, probably from “RailJet” family -around 10 years old- is being planned to come first. The use of the train under the new circumstances, with times approaching 3 hours and 30 minutes, will be a big step for the “railway family” bringing major changes in the country’s transport.

A second objective of Goldair is to launch, after many decades, an international service, linking Athens to Central Europe and most likely, to Vienna. It is reminded that international passenger transport services have already been deregulated as early as 2016.

This news is even more  important if we take into account that Goldair’s partner in Greece is the Austrian OBB, one of the largest and most powerful companies in Europe, and this investment in the Greek passenger transport sector can be also be interpreted as a sign of confidence in the potential of the country’s railway market. Besides, the train that is expected to come toGreece will be from OBB, manufactured in 2006.

For its part, Rail Cargo Logistics Goldair, the second company after TRAINOSE, which has been licensed for freight transport, is focusing on Northern Greece and its connection with Bulgaria and FYROM while the next goal is, after the completion of all pending infrastructure projects, to strengthen its place even further in oil transport with new collaborations in Attica Region.

According to information, STASY (company responsible for fixed-rail urban transport within the capital) is also one of the companies that is interested in providing passenger rail transport, not only for intercity but also suburban itineraries .

Nikos Karagiannis-ypodomes.com