Integrating Hungary in a European high-speed railway network will be “the grandest railway project of our life”, State Secretary László Mosoczi told an online conference on the Budapest-Warsaw railway development project aimed at connecting the Visegrad countries and Austria.
Once the new service is complete within the next 10 years, Vienna and Bratislava will be accessible from Budapest in less than 2 hours, Prague in 3.5 hours, and Warsaw in 5.5 hours, the state secretary said.
The project, he insisted, will guarantee a sustainable future for Hungarian railways.
Hungary has spent over 2,000 billion forints (EUR 5.6bn) on domestic railway developments in the past 15 years, while the government could spend “several times as much” in future to increase the competitiveness of the railway, Mosoczi said.
The state secretary noted the European Union’s directive of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 90 percent before 2050, and said that
“the real solution” could be switching over from cars and aircraft to trains, which “could even ensure full emissions-free operations”.
Exciting and Wonderful news.
A lover of rail travel and overall complimentary to our present rail network to enable travel throughout Europe, this project will off shoot many bonuses for Hungary.
European Rail – is in a fast moving new and exciting era embraced by large numbers of European countries seeing it’s advantages over plane, automobile and bus travel throughout Europe.
BIG winner for Hungary.
I am not knocking the project but there is one flaw with this idea. That flaw is thinking it will cut green house gases and other damaging effects to the environment by parking jets and cars. WRONG! The power either has to be generated by natural gas, coal, solar, wind or nuclear. ALL of them have their downsides. Nuclear is a gift that keeps giving for thousands of years after the plants are decommisioned at the end of their service life, Natural gas requires damaging the planet by drilling for it plus pipelines everywhere to distribute it. Coal gives off lots of polution and its mining is damaging to the planet. Solar equipment manufacturing uses toxic chemicals, Wind towers are unsightly, hazzardous to birds and also use toxic chemicals to be manufactured.
There is no free ride folks, everything comes with a price one way or another.
Mario, stick to diving that car about.
How many other countries are contributing to these upgrades, Or is Hungary solely responsible for footing the bill?
I agree, the means of creating energy in this ERA is still using the planet’s resources. and we know from history how poorly humanity has handled that.
I live in Canada and although we have trains, it seems more efficient to use our car to travel anywhere because then we are not restricted in deciding where and when to go somewhere and don’t have to use a lot of money to enjoy our traveling.
However, having travelled to Hungary and landing in Austria first, we were able to walk pretty much everywhere in the one day we stayed in Vienne. We took the train to Budapest and learned to take buses and trolleys while there, but then we had family to guide us so we did not get lost, and we drove to Lake Balaton. So even in a small Country like Hungary and Austria, the car was more useful than a train. I’m guessing people would prefer to rent a car once they reach their destination, or take a car instead of a train, to get there.
Will the cost be shared by all the places that it will travel to, OR, will Hungary have to foot the whole bill?
I agree that the energy used to power these trains has to come from somewhere and mose fuel sources are taken from the planet by Humans who still don’t seem to know how to do it without destroying the world and leaving a dying world for our children. Will these trains use less energy than plaines, jets, cars, etc. Plus we still need these modes of travel to get around the world, so we aren’t really replacing them, just adding to the mess we’ve already created.
However, having travelled to Hungary and landing in Austria first, we were able to walk pretty much everywhere in the one day we stayed in Vienne. We took the train to Budapest and learned to take buses and trolleys while there, but then we had family to guide us so we did not get lost, and we drove to Lake Balaton. So even in a small Countries like Hungary and Austria, the car was more useful than a train. I’m guessing people would prefer to rent a car once they reach their destination, or take a car instead of a train, to get there.