photo: www.terkep.lap.hu/Helsinki corridors and supplementary network items
A high-speed rail line linking the Visegrad group's capitals is also planned to turn into Vienna and Székesfehérvár in central Hungary, the Ministry of Innovation and Technology (ITM) said.
Trains on the planned rail line, which should be built in the next decade, will be able to run at speeds of up to 320 km/h, the ministry says in a statement. The line belongs to a network of European planned high-speed railways to support the connection of the Visegrad four capitals in the region. The line will also be used by InterCity domestic trains, he added. The project is expected to reduce travel times between Budapest and Vienna and Budapest and Bratislava to less than two hours, according to a statement from Minister for Innovation and Technology Laszlo Palkovics. In the meantime, the journey from Budapest to Prague would take about three and a half hours, and the whole journey from Budapest to Warsaw would take five and a half hours, he said. The railway line will run along Hungary's busiest transport corridor, which runs from Budapest to the northwest, the ministry said, noting that most of the traffic here is international transit traffic. The turn off of the direction is planed towards Vienna at the Hegyeshalom border crossing, meanwhile, the route to Bratislava would run through Rajka, the statement says. According to preliminary estimates, the railway line will serve more than 20 million domestic and international passengers per year and will greatly relieve the current busy lines by increasing freight capacity. Referring to the feasibility study, the Ministry stated that the 1 trillion forint project has a meaningful return due to the positive impacts on transport, the environment, the economy and tourism. Given that the project is in line with the European Union's objective of doubling high-speed rail transport within the Member States by 2030 and tripling it by 2050, it is likely that the investment will be eligible for EU funding, the ministry said. A decision on the financing of environmental parts of the project may be made during the summer, she added.
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