photo: https://www.happyrail.com/en/supercity-pendolino/Pendolino
Martin Hausenblas, one of the top leaders of the new political movement People PRO, today presented on Facebook his plans to build a network of high-speed railways in the Czech Republic. According to his plan, a network of lines with a speed of 200 - 300 km / hour is to be built in 13 years, it is to cover all regional cities and copy especially the existing railway corridors. However, the plan does not address freight transport.
Today, Martin Hausenblas presented in a few minutes a video the intention of the People PRO movement to build a high-speed railway in the Czech Republic. The movement's plan is to include 13 years of construction, including cooperation between regions, cities and the state. He mentions the law on linear constructions as a basic precondition for success, which will simplify and, above all, speed up construction. The movement also wants to effectively connect the network to the airports in Prague and Pardubice. The goal of high-speed lines is to locate the Czech Republic as an effective traffic junction in Europe and to facilitate commuting to work in the capital and from other regional cities. At first glance, the idea of the movement sounds effective, logical and ambitious. It is based on the fact that we do not have any extreme elevations or other geographical complications that could significantly hinder the plan.
However, the ambitious plan addresses exclusively passengers of rail transport and does not address congested freight capacity, which is run on the same lines in the Czech Republic. The operation of high-speed trains would significantly affect the operation of freight carriers, which could use the increased speed only minimally. The construction of high-speed lines thus makes sense when it is not run on the existing railway body, which can thus be freed up exclusively for freight transport and increase capacity for carriers. The plan that high-speed lines would be created on a new body that will only tentatively copy the current transit corridors is also not feasible given the lack of land capacity, the complexity of management, even with the applicable law on line construction and actively used expropriation of owners and speculators. The Czech Republic could also go the way of expanding double-track lines to multi-track lines, but even then it will not be possible to reach the required speed of 200-300 km / h.
With regard to other details that the statement does not mention at all and the circumstances of the construction of railway lines in the Czech Republic, it seems that the Czechs will have to wait many more years before these ambitious projects become a reality.
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