Speech Ferroviária Nacional
, Entidade Pública Empresarial, usually abbreviated asREFER, EPEor justREFER, was aPortuguesepubliccompanyentrustedwith the management and maintenance of thePortuguese rail network. REFER was based in theSanta Apolónia train stationin Lisbon.
Since the beginning of 2015, the company merged with the road maintenance company Estradas de Portugal into the newly founded company Infraestruturas de Portugal .
History and function
As part of the segregation of duties and distribution of Portuguese public railway company Caminhos-de-ferro Portugueses in 1990 years, founded the government under Prime Minister Guterres in April 1997 with the Legislative Decree 104/97, the April 29, 1997 in the Diário da República , the Official Gazette of the Portuguese state, the public company with the name Rede Ferroviária Nacional , to German National Railway Network . The public enterprise was under the administration of the Ministry of Public Works, Transport and Communication or the subordinate Secretary of State for Transport and the Ministry of Finance and Public Administration or the subordinate Secretary of State for Finance.
REFER's tasks mainly comprised the management, construction and maintenance of the current Portuguese rail network. It was thus one of the three pillars of the reform of the railway sector. In addition to REFER, these were the National Institute for Mobility and Land Transport , in Portuguese Instituto da Mobilidade e dos Transportes Terrestres , which, among other things, grants access to the railway network, issues licenses for railway operators, collects user fees for the network and, in principle, the activities in the Portuguese rail network monitored. The third pillar of the reform was the renamed state railway company Comboios de Portugal , which only operated Portuguese passenger and freight traffic. In doing so, the Portuguese government opened the railway network to other railway companies.
In general, the company's financial position has been critical throughout its history. It posted a loss of 162 million euros in 2007 and 181 million euros in 2008. On the other hand, the infrastructure operator received more from network charges. The public transport company Comboios de Portugal transferred REFER 54.8 million euros, the private operator Fertagus 3.102 million euros. On average, more than 2,100 trains use the REFER network every day, more than 80 percent of which are passenger trains. The public transport infrastructure company's debts totaled more than five billion euros.
In 2009, the Portuguese government changed the corporate form of REFER from the previous Empresa Pública (“public company”) to an Entidade Pública Empresarial (roughly comparable to an institution under public law ).
Since the beginning of 2014, the Portuguese government under Prime Minister Passos Coelho has been pushing ahead with the plan to merge the company with Estradas de Portugal, which is also the state-owned road operator . On the one hand, this should result in operating cost savings of between 15 and 50 million euros. On the other hand, the merged, larger company should receive loans with lower interest rates in order to be able to finance future infrastructure projects. Since January 1, 2015, both companies have been headed by the same Chairman of the Board of Directors ( presidente do conselho de administração ), António Ramalho .
The merger was completed on June 1, 2015.
Chair of the REFER Board of Directors
| Surname | Political party | Term of office |
| Manuel Frasquilho | PS | April 29, 1997 - August 31, 2000 |
| Francisco Cardoso dos Reis | PS | September 1, 2000 - October 10, 2002 |
| José Braamcamp Sobral | Psd | October 11, 2002 - October 26, 2005 |
| Luís Filipe Pardal | PS | October 27, 2005 - August 31, 2012 |
| Rui Loureiro | Psd | September 1, 2012 - December 31, 2014 |
| Antonio Ramalho | k. A. | January 1, 2015 - June 1, 2015 a |
a = On June 1, 2015, the company merged with the newly founded Infraestruturas de Portugal. Ramalho took over the chairmanship of the new company.
Network and operation
Route network
Until recently, REFER operated a rail network with a total length of 2546.9 kilometers, stretching from Valença in the north to Lagos and Vila Real de Santo António in the south of the country. Of these, 2,438.8 kilometers were in Iberian broad gauge, 108.1 kilometers in meter gauge. 1,823.58 kilometers of the network were single-track, 562.6 kilometers double-track and 47.7 kilometers multi-track. 1,608.3 kilometers were electrified with 25 KV / 50 Hz, 25.4 kilometers with 1500 V (excluding the Linha de Cascais ), the rest (913.2 kilometers) was driven by diesel railcars and diesel locomotives.
Border crossings
At the end of the company's existence there were three still operational border crossings to Spain : Valença / Tui in the north of the country between Porto and Vigo ( Linha do Minho ), Vilar Formoso / Fuentes de Oñoro in the northeast between Guarda and Salamanca ( Linha da Beira Alta ) and Elvas / Badajoz ( Linha do Leste ) in the southeast. Only a few regional train pairs drove over the former in tourist traffic via Valença, there was no train traffic via Elvas. Only one pair of night trains drove via Fuentes de Oñoro, but the entire international freight train traffic is also handled through these.
The border crossing between Abrantes and Cáceres ( Ramal de Cáceres ) has been closed, as has the border crossing between Barca d'Alva and La Fregeneda ( Barca d'Alva – La Fuente de San Esteban railway ). In the south of the country there is still no cross-border connection to Spain .
Railway companies
Four railway companies have recently operated in the REFER network: the state-owned Comboios de Portugal (with trains from the business units CP Urbanos de Lisboa , CP Urbanos do Porto , CP Regional and CP Longo Curso ), the outsourced, also state-owned CP Carga and the private companies Fertagus and Takargo Rail .
Web links
- REFER website (Portuguese, English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Alexandra Noronha: Refer agravou prejuízos para 181 milhões de euros em 2008. Jornal de Negócios, May 20, 2009, accessed on February 24, 2014 (Portuguese).
- ^ Leonor Matias: Estado obrigado a injectar capital no universo Refer. (No longer available online.) Diário de Notícias, August 3, 2008, archived from the original on February 23, 2015 ; Retrieved February 24, 2014 (Portuguese). Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Governo estuda fusão entre a Refer ea Estradas de Portugal. Público, March 20, 2014, accessed March 24, 2014 (Portuguese).
- ^ A b António Ramalho é o novo presidente da REFER. In: Jornal de Notícias. December 31, 2014, accessed January 5, 2015 (Portuguese).
- ↑ Rui Lopes Loureiro. (PDF) CV. REFER, EPE, archived from the original on November 7, 2013 ; Retrieved February 24, 2014 (Portuguese).
- ↑ a b c d REFER, EPE: Directório da Rede 2015. (PDF) December 13, 2013, archived from the original on March 5, 2014 ; Retrieved February 24, 2014 (Portuguese).
