Philtrak revives bid to build $5 billion electric railway system

MANILA, Philippines — The consortium that had proposed to convert the idle 117-kilometer Panay railway into an electric road train (ERT) system is reviving its offer, this time on a broader scale with the inclusion of three more areas.

Backed by a $5-billion funding pledged by US-based venture capital Hasdaq Financial Holdings Group, the Philtrak consortium has set its sights anew on the railway project, which will be called the Farm to Market Digital Logistics Integrated Backbone (FM DLIB).

Francis Yuseco, Philtrak CEO and principal proponent of the FM DLIB, said from the original scope covering Panay Island, the project will now stretch to Pangasinan, Batangas and Marawi City.

FM DLIB, a collaboration between the Department of Science and Technology (DOST) and Philtrak,  is a  modern public transport system that will use DOST’s ERT technology at the old, decommissioned Panay Railways Inc. train line.

Filipino engineers from the DOST Metals Industry Research and Development Center used locally available parts to design the ERT “buses” and technology, which is seen as a viable option to  ease mass transport problems in congested urban centers such as Metro Manila and Cebu.

The DOST and Philtrak signed a memorandum of understanding in 2018 to rehabilitate and convert the 37-year old decommissioned railways into the FM DLIB but the onset of the pandemic momentarily halted the project.

But as pandemic restrictions eased in February 2021, Yuseco said the Batangas provincial government  reached out to Philtrak,  expressing intent to also rehabilitate and convert the 35-year-old decommissioned Calamba to Batangas Philippine National Railways spur line into the FM DLIB. Pangasinan and Marawi similarly asked Philtrak to be included in the FM DLIB master plan.

Yuseco said the FM DLIB is focused on rehabilitating only decommissioned and compromised railways where thousands of homeless Filipinos have already established their homes.

“Without any budget to rehabilitate these already occupied railways, relocate and resettle homeless Filipinos, the award-winning industrial design of the FM DLIB will be able to attain within the same space of the unsustainable and decommissioned railways much more than just a mass transit system for passengers. All railways are unsustainable resulting in their decommissioning. Decommissioned railways can all be redesigned to become FM DLIB,” he said.

Under the original proposal, the consortium will lay out a 3.7-meter-wide asphalt trackway along a 117-kilometer stretch from Iloilo City in Iloilo province to Roxas City, Capiz in the proposed Phase 1, with Phase 2 potentially extending the line into Caticlan in Aklan province.

Philtrak plans to deploy an initial fleet of 40-passenger, 17.8-meter long, fully airconditioned ERT units at the line.

The consortium also proposes to deploy an initial 20 17.8-meter long refrigerated and non-refrigerated units that will transport agricultural, marine and other cargo within Panay Island.

The ERT units can run at an average speed of 80 kilometers per hour.