Trains on the Czech railway are accelerating thanks to the finalisation of investments made by Správa železnic with one of their results being a line speed increase. Journey times are reduced not only on modernised main routes but also on reconstructed regional lines.
“Although the journey times are usually reduced by several minutes, we must be aware that this occurs on rather short line sections. Even then, in many cases we can already compete with road transport including motor cars. Moreover, we are gradually modernising more integrated sections on transit corridors with time savings as a result. This can be seen most clearly while travelling by train between Prague and Ostrava as well as on other routes”, said Mr Jiří Svoboda, Director General of Správa železnic.
Investments into transit corridor lines in particular are paying off. The biggest recent completed investment was a relocation of the line Ejpovice – Plzeň with a new tunnel over four kilometres long. Increasing maximum speed up to 160 kph allowed a decrease of fast train journey times from Rokycany to Plzeň from the original 19 minutes in 2018 down only to 11 minutes.
On the section Bohumín – Karviná, journey times of fast trains have reduced from 15 minutes last year to the current 10 minutes and they are shorter by two additional minutes on the connecting section to Český Těšín. On Rail Transit Corridor IV from Prague to České Budějovice, the completion of a part of the works has reduced journey times: e.g. the fast train from Veselí nad Lužnicí will arrive České Budějovice in 27 minutes instead of the original 31 minutes.
Správa železnic has not forgotten about regional lines either. Modernisation of the line Louny – Lovosice has reduced journey times considerably, namely from 69 to 52 minutes. Passengers will also appreciate shorter journey times on the sections Kladno-Dubí – Brandýsek, Žďár nad Sázavou – Tišnov or Studénka – Bílovec.
This year, journey times will decrease thanks to a line speed increase e.g. up to 160 kph on the section from Valašské Meziříčí to Hustopeče nad Bečvou (9.6 km), a reconstruction of Řetenice station (8 km) or modernisation and electrification of the line Šakvice – Hustopeče u Brna (6.7 km).
(Source: SZCZ)
