Posted on 12/08/2002 5:43:45 PM PST by Willie Green
For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use.
EXPRESS Rail Link Sdn Bhd (ERL), the country´s only operator of high-speed trains, has set its sight at securing more fast train concession projects in the country, according to its executive chairman Datuk Mohd Nadzmi Mohd Salleh.
“We feel that the technical know-how and experience we have gained from operating the high-speed air-rail service between the KL City Air Terminal (KL CAT) in Kuala Lumpur and the KL International Airport in Sepang will give us an edge over other rail operators in handling such projects,” he told Star Business in an interview in Kuala Lumpur.
Nadzmi believed that the much talked about high-speed rail link between Kuala Lumpur and Singapore would be a viable project given the current air travel passenger volume between both cities.
“It will be good for the nation as we do not need a learning curve compared with other companies. Even if there were to be any learning curves, it would not be a steep one for us,” he said.
According to Nadzmi, rail travel is fast becoming a favoured means of transportation in the developed countries of Europe and Japan.
He suggested that the Kuala Lumpur and Singapore high-speed rail be modelled similar to Europe´s Eurostar and Japan´s Shinkansen (Bullet Train).
ERL electric trains have the cruising speed of 160kph and a top speed of 172kph, making them the fastest trains in the Asean region.
“High-speed trains may take one-and-a-half hour to arrive in Singapore from Kuala Lumpur and may not take too much time compared with air travel,” he said, adding that the rail link would supplement the existing air travel services between Kuala Lumpur and Singapore.
Rail services, he said offered several advantages over air travel such as near door-to-door services at a much lower fare.
“While airports are often out of town and hard to access, railway stations are usually located in the city centres,” Nazdmi said.
Other benefits of using the high-speed trains compared with conventional air travel include the sense of security for passengers as trains are moving on the ground level.
“Trains also offer more space for passengers to move around and allow them to do some work unlike the cramp conditions inside airplanes,” he said.
Nadzmi said that airlines companies should be given an opportunity to participate in the Kuala Lumpur-Singapore high-speed rail link if any consortium was to be set up to develop the project.
Nadzmi has a 10% stake in ERL, consisting of 50 million shares which are held through his company Trisilco Equity Sdn Bhd.
Other ERL shareholders are YTL Corp Bhd, with a 50% stake and Lembaga Tabung Haji, a 40% share through its wholly-owned subsidiary TH Technologies Sdn Bhd.
Nadzmi said China was more ambitious in its rail projects as it was implementing super-fast trains using magnetic levitation (maglev) technology with speed of up to 570kph to link up the Shanghai´s new international airport in Pudong district.
ERL launched the non-stop KLIA express service between KL CAT and KLIA on April 14.
In June 20, ERL launched its KLIA transit service using the same track with stations in Bandar Tasik Selatan, Putrajaya/Cyberjaya and Salak Tinggi.
“We are a lean organisation . We try very hard to keep our cost down as this will increase our productivity,” he said.
“During the construction of the ERL infrastructure, we did not allow any variation to the original plans and kept things within the budget,” he said, adding that the KL CAT to KLIA rail link project was built at a cost of RM2.4bil.
According to Nadzmi, rail projects are not easy to manage, but the ERL will become viable if it has the right project team.
Nadzmi said there were plans to list the ERL on the KLSE as the investments costs of the project was huge and “not what the shareholders want to carry out on their own.”
He said ERL would probably be listed as an infrastructure project company (IPC) because IPCs were allowed to trade their shares on the KLSE based on long-term earnings potential instead of a long track record of profits.
(What's the matter, Ambrose taken the lead?)
I grew up in a nation that used to be known for its "can do" attitude.
It has been undermined by luddite let-somebody-else-do-it libertarians.
(Perhaps we can sabotage them by exporting AmTrak?)
No, not in this article.
Here they're discussing high-speed rail and maglev for city-to-city travel.
It just shows how far behind we have fallen.
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