BUDAPEST, May 7 (Xinhua) -- Planning has started for a new high-speed railway system linking the Visegrad Group (V4) countries (Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia) together, according to local media on Tuesday.
"In two years, the feasibility study on the high-speed railway linking Budapest-Bratislava-Brno-Warsaw will be completed," Hungarian daily Magyar Nemzet reported here, quoting a statement of the Public Procurement Authority of Hungary.
"The track will be built along a new trail, allowing the trains to reach speeds of 250 to 350 kilometers per hour," the paper added.
Proposals for the preparation of a feasibility study for the high-speed rail line were evaluated by the Public Procurement Authority of Hungary.
The winner was the NSV Warsaw Consortium, which consists exclusively of Hungarian companies, which will work on the plans for a 1.1 billion forints (3.8 million U.S. dollars) over the next two years.
The task is to connect the V4 countries with a 700-900-kilometer track on a new line. The trains will have to travel at least 250 kilometers per hour on the line, but NSV will have to make calculations for the parameters concerning speeds of 300 and 350 kilometers per hour as well.
The goal is to have at least 500,000 passengers a year on the future railway line.
