With the complete commissioning of the Ejpovice tunnel, the modernisation of the currently 14 kilometre long section of the third rail transit corridor between Rokycany and Plzen is complete. The project is co-financed by the European Union from the Cohesion Fund within the Operational Program for Transport. Mr Marc Lemaître the Director General of DG Regio for the European Commission accompanied by the Minister for Transport Dan Ťok took part in the concluding ceremony of the work.
“Thanks to the Rokycany-Plzen railway project, part of which is the newest longest tunnel in the Czech Republic, the journey by train from the centre of Prague to the centre of Plzen will be shortened to 1 hour and 14 minutes and thus becomes shorter than travelling by car. The European Union contributed an amount of 3.5 billion crowns to the project. The new railway track is part of the main Rhine-Danube corridor and thus brings benefits not only to the inhabitants of the Plzen Region, but also to the entire Czech Republic and European Union through international passenger and goods transport” said the Marc Lemaître, Director General of DG Regio.
The modernised section Rokycany – Plzeň is part of the Trans-European Transport Network (TEN-T) and lies on the western branch of the III railway transit corridor Prague – Plzen – Cheb – state border with Germany. Part of the works on the project, the so called 1st phase, was co-financed within the Operational Program for Transport 2007-2013, its 2nd phase is being carried out within the current Operational Program for Transport 2014-2020. The estimated total investment costs of the works (1st and 2nd phase) amounted to 6.783 billion crowns excluding DPH. The planned contribution by the European Union from the Cohesion Fund for the whole project could be around 3.520 billion crowns. The national financing of the project was provided by the State Fund for Transport Infrastructure. The contractor for the works, called The modernisation of the Rokycany – Plzen railway, was a joint venture of the companies Metrostav and Subterra.
(Source: SZDC)
