Yerevan November 3
Alexander Avanesov. The South Caucasus Railway Company, which is the concession manager of Armenia's railways, assesses certain provisions of the draft resolution of the Government of Armenia "On the approval of the railway infrastructure development strategy" as not corresponding to the current realities.
SCR reports that in the process of preparing the document it was not agreed upon and was not discussed with the company that most fully possesses information in this restricted professional field. Judging by the text of the document, its authors do not have information regarding the real situation. As a result the draft includes provisions and assessments that do not reflect the current state of affairs and contradict individual points of the concession agreement on the basis of which SCR operates.
Assessing the current situation with the railway infrastructure, which is managed by SCR, the drafters of the document obviously took as a basis the realities of 2008, when the Company had just took over the management of the assets of the Armenian railway. The Decree of the Government of Armenia N1497-H of October 12, 2006, describes in detail, to put it mildly, the depressing situation in this area when the volume of deferred investments of the Armenian Railway was $ 112.5 million.
Meanwhile, since 2008, about 110 billion drams have been invested in the reconstruction and modernization of the railway infrastructure, the renewal of rolling stock and the formation of a modern machine-building complex on the basis of the Gyumri and Yerevan locomotive depots and the Gyumri wagon depot. 463 km of track and 40 bridges were also repaired. In addition, a program has been launched to upgrade the suburban passenger train, which will be fully implemented in the 2020s. A new modern electric train has been launched, which runs in the Yerevan-Gyumri route. At the same time, a comprehensive investment program for rolling stock fleet renewal is being worked out.
As a result, over the 10 years of SCR activity, the number of transport accidents (security status indicator) on the railway decreased 6-fold, the failures of technical means of power supply – 4-fold, the failures of technical means of railway automatics – 10-fold. The average train speed increased from 25 km / h to 60 km / h (in some cases up to 100 km / h), 8 large station complexes were modernized, labor productivity increased by 46%, new technologies were introduced in Armenia. The complex of these measures led to a multiple decrease in emergency events. Thus, if in the first year of SCR operation, in 2008, 151 coming- offs of organized trains (including 4 passenger trains) were recorded on the railway, then in 2017 there was 1 case, and that was not the fault of the SCR employees.
SCR Company, as a company responsible for the development of the strategic railway sector of Armenia, will continue to fulfill its obligations to the state in full scale and is ready to cooperate with all the stakeholders. CJSC "South Caucasus Railway" is a 100% subsidiary of OJSC "Russian Railways" and carries out concession management of Armenian railways. The railway infrastructure of Armenia was transferred to the concession management of SCR CJSC according to the Concession Agreement signed on February 13, 2008. The term of the concession management is 30 years with the right of prolongation for another 10 years.