Could you paste - the FT won't let you in unless you are a subscriber
OK, but the FT is a bit sniffy about people pasting.
The French authorities have been accused of trying to block the first-ever order by an affiliate of SNCF, Frances national train operator, for non-French high-speed trains, after Eurostar named Germanys Siemens preferred bidder for a new train fleet.
The board of Eurostar, the cross-Channel high-speed train operator which SNCF controls, will meet on Friday afternoon to decide whether to go ahead, despite Frances opposition to the order, worth more than 600m.
SNCF and its international joint ventures which include Eurostar and Thalys, which runs from Paris to Brussels, Cologne and Amsterdam always previously ordered high-speed trains from Alstom, widely seen in France as a national champion. Alstom builds SNCFs flagship 300kph TGV trains.
Eurostar selected the Velaro-D, the latest version of Germanys ICE high-speed train family, over Alstoms AGV, as its preferred option in June.
The Velaro-D and AGV are now seen as Europes leading competitors for large high-speed train orders. SNCF has a record of buying trains built by non-French companies, including Canadas Bombardier, but previous orders have all been built at the contractors French factories.
Two of the parties involved told the Financial Times that French authorities were exerting pressure for a reversal of recent changes in the Channel tunnels safety rules that open up use of the tunnel for the first time to the new trains. Both believed it reflected official frustration that Eurostar had opted for the German product.
None of the parties involved would comment publicly ahead of the board meeting, scheduled for 3pm in London.
Nicolas Sarkozy, Frances president, has regularly expressed his pride in his pivotal role, when economy minister, in arranging a state-backed rescue for Alstom when it was in danger of collapse in 2004. When Alstom unveiled the AGV in 2008, Mr Sarkozy attended and used the occasion to question the right of Alstoms competitors to sell trains in France.
The two parties both said the French government was vowing to prevent the use of the Channel tunnel by any train with distributed traction, where electrical equipment is hidden under the floor and the motors are distributed throughout the train. Until earlier this year, the tunnel safety rules said all trains using the tunnel needed to have all their electrical equipment and motors concentrated in power cars at either end the arrangement on Eurostars existing trains, built in the early 1990s.
The AGV also uses distributed traction.
What they are saying is that they will not endorse trains with distributed traction going through the tunnel, one person familiar with Eurostars position said of the French authorities position.
If Eurostar goes ahead with the Velaro-D order, it will mean Eurostar is using almost the same train as Deutsche Bahn plans to use on services between Frankfurt and London, likely to start in 2013. Eurostar plans, however, to order trains 400m long to satisfy rules about passenger access to emergency escape tunnels in a tunnel fire. DB is trying to persuade the tunnel authorities to accept it would be safe to use two 200m-long trains coupled together.
Alstom did not immediately wish to comment.
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Here's another link, in RGI.
