The Ministry of Innovation and Technology (ITM) has confirmed plans for a high-speed railway line linking the capitals of the Visegrad Group countries which will also branch off to Vienna and Székesfehérvár, in central Hungary.
According to MTI, trains on the V4 railway line to be built over the next decade will be able to travel at speeds of up to 320kmph. The line will also be used by domestic InterCity trains. The project is expected to shorten travel times between Budapest and Vienna and Budapest and Bratislava to less than two hours.
László Palkovics, Minister of Innovation and Technology, said the journey from Budapest to Prague would take about three-and-a-half hours and the full Budapest-Warsaw trip would be five-and-a-half hours. The railway line will be situated along Hungary’s busiest traffic corridor, running from Budapest to the north-west. Plans are to have the line branch off towards Vienna at the Hegyeshalom border crossing, while the route to Bratislava would go through Rajka.
According to preliminary estimates, the railway line would serve over 20 million domestic and international passengers a year. Citing the feasibility study, the ministry said the roughly HUF 1,000 billion project would recoup its costs through its favorable impacts on traffic, the environment, the economy and tourism. Given that the project is in line with the European Union’s goal to double high-speed rail traffic within the bloc by 2030 and to triple it by 2050, the investment is likely to be eligible for EU funding.