Portugal's Only Private Bidder for the High-Speed Line Says It Cannot Race Two State Railways at Once
B-Rail, of the Barraqueiro group, has worked on entering the Lisbon to Porto line since 2021. Renfe is now homologating 30 variable-gauge Talgo trainsets for Portugal, and CP is buying 12 of its own. B-Rail is the only candidate without a state balance sheet.
The only private company preparing to run high-speed trains in Portugal says the market may be closed before it opens. B-Rail, part of the Barraqueiro group, has been building a case since 2021 to enter the Lisbon to Porto high-speed line, and it now finds itself looking at two state-owned rivals rather than one.
"We cannot afford to enter into competition only with subsidised companies, such as CP and Renfe," Alberto Castanho Ribeiro of B-Rail told Railway Gazette International, in a response to the Spanish government's announcement that Renfe intends to operate in Portugal. He pointed at the Spanish high-speed market as the warning: there, he said, "there are national companies from other countries willing to run at a loss for several years".
What Renfe has already started
The Spanish operator is not merely interested. It has begun homologating 30 Talgo trainsets from the 106 and 107 series, fitted with variable-gauge wheels so they can run on the Portuguese network. Óscar Puente, Spain's transport minister, said the models suit the Portuguese context because part of the network there uses Iberian gauge, as Spain does, "and we are trying to homologate them so we can operate there".
Renfe is reported to have moved to Portugal the homologation programme it had planned to run in France with ten units, expanding it to 30. Fitting those trains with the signalling and safety technology the Portuguese network requires is put at a minimum of 20 million euros. The routes in view are Vigo to Porto and Lisbon to Madrid.
The timetable belongs to the infrastructure rather than the operators. Spain expects to finish its side of the connections by 2030. Portugal's section from Porto to the border is scheduled for 2032, and the Lisbon leg for 2034. B-Rail has said it wants to be operating from 2029.
Trains, drivers and who owns them
Under the open-access rules that will govern the line, any licensed operator can bid for paths. The practical obstacles are rolling stock and staff, and both currently sit inside CP. In August the Autoridade da Concorrência told the government that a genuinely open railway would have to let competitors use CP's trains and drivers, precisely so that incumbency does not decide the outcome before any competition begins.
CP is meanwhile buying its own high-speed fleet. Its tender for 12 trainsets capable of 300 km per hour has narrowed to Alstom and Talgo, with the possibility of a second tender adding more units. That leaves B-Rail as the only bidder in the field without a state balance sheet behind it, and its complaint is less about Renfe's arrival than about what the field will look like when the first path is sold.
What this means for expats
- Competition is the point of the line: whether fares fall depends on more than one operator surviving, and that question is being decided now, years before the first train runs.
- The regulator has already flagged it: the Competition Authority asked Portugal to open its railways and to make CP's trains and drivers available to rivals.
- The fleet decision is close: only Alstom and Talgo remain in the race to supply CP's first high-speed trains.
- Construction is moving: regulators have cleared the first Porto section of the line.
- Gauge is why this is possible at all: Portugal and Spain ruled out regauging their railways to the European standard, which is what makes Renfe's variable-gauge trains a workable answer.
