Brussels, 22/10/2012 (Agence Europe) - The French Railway Network (RFF) has just added some grist to the European Commission mill, as it prepares its fourth railway reform. In a letter dated mid-October, the company expresses its conviction that an infrastructure operator must carry out, “all the different activities associated with good management and network transparency: railway traffic management, economic performance, the availability of facilities and their upkeep and modernisation”. The RFF also believes that, “bringing together the traditional operator and infrastructure manager into the same undertaking would incur significant costs and create internal compartmentalisation”. To this end, the French infrastructure manager has calculated that, “the energy spent on guaranteeing the autonomy of the latter will not be as much as that expended on permanently reorganising the different systems, under pressure from the French and European competition authorities and the railway regulatory authority”. (MD/transl.fl)