NORWAY has re-merged state-owned operations and maintenance company Spordrift with the state-owned infrastructure manager Bane Nor.
Spordrift was spun off from Bane Nor in 2019 by the centre-right government in office at the time, with the intention of opening the infrastructure maintenance market to competition. However, the centre-left administration that succeeded it in 2021 rolled back market opening the same autumn and has now completed reuniting Spordrift with Bane Nor.
“Operation and maintenance of railway infrastructure are critical core competencies that Bane Nor should have direct control of,” the Norwegian minister of transport, Mr Jon-Ivar Nygård, said when the decision was taken in 2022.
“We cannot then divide the infrastructure by exposing these services to competition in several small geographic maintenance packages. That will entail a risk that [their] own competencies will erode and that international actors will take over.”
During the four years that Spordrift has been an independent company, punctuality has suffered both for passenger and freight trains, and one of the intentions of the December 1 merger is to improve this. Another objective, according to Bane Nor, is “to make operation and maintenance of the railways more efficient, and to achieve considerably improved maintenance work. In addition, the merger will lead to better control of the state of the infrastructure.”
No new railways will be built in Norway for the time being, at least not until the maintenance backlog on the existing network has been cleared.
Although the two companies have been separate for a relatively short time, their re-merger has been complex, with several technical and staff scheduling systems having to be adapted. The Spordrift management reportedly opposed the merger, which is said to be popular among staff.
“We’re very happy for this. We’ve been wanting, and fighting for, this ever since the companies were split,” Mr Torfinn Håverstad, deputy chairman of the Norwegian Union of Railway Workers (NJF), told Fri Fagbevegelse.
The addition of the 1400 Spordrift employees will take Bane Nor’s total staff to 5000 employees after the merger is completed.
