Romania is preparing a high-speed railway of almost 800 kilometers, which will cost an estimated EUR 15 billion, according to a feasibility study.
The corridor will stretch from the Black Sea to the western border, from Constanța to Oradea, and involves a combination of modernizing existing lines for speeds of 200 km/h and constructing new double lines that will allow speeds of 250 km/h, Profit.ro reported.
According to the Ministry of Transport, the proposed route will go from Constanta on the Black Sea, ton Bucharest, Brasov, Târgu Mureș, Cluj-Napoca and Oradea in western Romania.
Existing railway lines will need to be modernized for speeds between 160 and 200 km/h, and the construction of completely new segments, on which trains will be able to run at up to 250 km/h.
In the first stage, the Bucharest-Fetești line will be upgraded where the maximum speed will reach 200 km/h. There will also be the construction of a new, double line between Fetești and Constanta.
The route considered optimal is Constanta – Bucharest – Brașov – Sighișoara – Târgu Mureș – Cluj-Napoca – Zalău – Oradea – the border with Hungary, integrated into the European TEN-T network.
The corridor would have a total length of 781.9 kilometers, and the estimated average cost is about 19 million euros per kilometer.
There was no word about where funding would come from or when the high-speed line would be built.
Profit.ro reported that Canadian company Atkins Realis, that signed the engineering, procurement and construction management contract for units 3 and 4 of the Cernavoda nuclear power plant, was selected to also provide the strategic study for the high-speed railway line that would connect Bucharest to the rest of the high-speed rail network in Europe.
Atkins Realis in Canada, through its subsidiary Candu Energy, is the owner of the technology used at the Cernavoda plant. The duration of the contract was 8 months, starting at the end of October 2024, the general objective of the contract being that “the selected consulting firm, Atkins Realis, provide a strategic study for the high-speed line in Romania Proft.ro reported.
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