Mayor Volf: the Prague-Kladno railway should run through the airport
According to Kladno Mayor Milan Volf (Choice for Kladno), the railway between Prague and Kladno should run through Václav Havel Airport. However, last week the Ministry of Transport chose a variant of railway modernization that does not meet this requirement. The turn to the airport is planned from the Prague section of the route, the direct connection between Kladno and the airport is not included in the route. Volf wants to solve the missing connection from Kladno personally with the Minister of Transport Dan Ťok.
According to Wolf, the connection via the airport is unacceptable. “We have to implant Kladno there one hundred percent,” he said. The currently preferred route should lead along the surface from Masaryk railway station via the Negrelli viaduct to Stromovka and further through a tunnel to Dejvice.
Between Dejvice and Veleslavín, the line should lead partly through a tunnel and further to Kladno with a turnoff to the airport at Dlouhá míla in Prague 6. The construction is to cost about 18 billion crowns and the Czech Republic wants to obtain a European subsidy for it. According to Prague Mayor Adriana Krnáčová (YES), preparatory work on the route outside Prague may begin this year.
According to Wolf, between 20,000 and 22,000 people travel between Kladno and Prague every day. A significant part of them disembark at the airport or change there for other public transport.
The track separates the Kladno district
According to Kladno Development Councilor Ondřej Rys, another complication in the case of building a modernized railway could be that, according to current plans, the track will cross Kladno near the Kladno Sletiště sports complex by cutting it off from the city. “This is unacceptable for us, the track must first and foremost meet the needs of the city,” said Rys. According to him, the solution could be, for example, a deepening of a railway corridor or a variant with operation on only one track.
The route between Dejvice and Veleslavín is not yet completely certain. While the city district of Prague 6 considers a tunnel between Dejvice and Veleslavín to be a suitable variant, the ministry proposes part of the route underground and part above ground. The price difference between the two variants is three to 3.5 billion crowns. The railway project may thus be divided into two parts, when in the first phase construction would begin in the section from Veleslavín to the airport and to Kladno, where there is no dispute.
The Railway Infrastructure Administration (SŽDC) wants to electrify the current single-track line in Kladno and expand it by one track. Only the turn to the airport should be completely new, the rest of the route will copy the current connection. The journey from Masaryk railway station in the center of Prague to the airport should take a maximum of 25 minutes, and to Kladno about half an hour. In Prague, the train would run at a maximum speed of 60 to 80 kilometers per hour, except for 120 kilometers per hour. Modernization has been planned since the 1990s.