A train derailment causes public transport shock
In his introduction, the CEO of the Chinese-Hungarian joint venture, Balázs Szeneczey, emphasized that, in his opinion, it is a very important project from a national strategic point of view. He believed that the investment will also be good for the people of Dunavarsány, because “additional developments” will also affect the city. He said that the investment is being built with two large Chinese companies, and that China has a 38,000 km high-speed rail network, which is 70 percent of the world’s high-speed rail network, so they understand such investments. (On the Hungarian side, MÁV has a small ownership share in the company, the majority influence belongs to China Railway International Corporation and China Railway International Group.). Szenecy became the head of the company this year, previously he was the deputy mayor responsible for urban development of István Tarlós, and later he also worked in the management of the National Transportation Center.
Afterwards, Zsolt Vizi, the technical manager of the project, gave a brief overview of the investment. He talked about the fact that one hundred and fifty years ago, they thought they were dealing with railway development, that there was great potential in this line. Even later, it was clear that it could have a serious geopolitical transit role. A large amount of goods can be delivered on this line, it is in an excellent location, a direct passage from Budapest all the way to Piraeus. In the Greek port, very serious port development is taking place, he said.
According to the investment, it is beneficial because
- it will have an economic stimulating effect;
- travel time is shortened, so the mobility of the workforce increases;
- the delivery time is reduced;
- environmental and noise pollution decreases;
- accident risks are reduced.
He believes that most of the goods that now go by road in this direction will be able to go by rail once the project is completed. Modernization is needed because this line was last renovated eighty years ago. It is now outdated in terms of superstructure and speed, it used to be capable of a speed of 100 km/h, but today it cannot be maintained due to its outdatedness. After the reconstruction, it will be capable of a speed of 160 km/h on most parts of the track, passenger trains in the Budapest area can run at a maximum speed of 80 km/h. They calculate that the current 8-hour travel time between Budapest and Belgrade will be reduced to 3.5 hours. A maximum of 160 km/h applies to passenger transport, freight trains can run at a maximum speed of 100 km/h.
The investment will also have a big impact on suburban traffic, he said, and this will also affect Dunavarsány. Regularity and stability improve, and travel becomes predictable.
Rail transport is very important from the point of view of achieving the climate goals, as the railway is only responsible for a very small part of transport emissions, he concluded. The track will be expanded from one to two tracks, a total of 341 km of track will be built, station buildings will be erected, and some of the families will be renovated. Hundreds of parking spaces will be built (for cars and bicycles), the platforms will be accessible. Noise protection walls are being built along the entire line for about 60 km, and there will also be such in Dunavarsány. The station building in Dunavarsány will be renovated and expanded with a new building wing.
Currently, train traffic is suspended on almost the entire line, passengers are transported by buses.
The construction must be completed by June 30, 2025, only then will passenger rail services resume.
According to the permits, the contractor must carry out the construction between 7 a.m. and 6 p.m., but there are technical works that cannot be inspected during this time interval. Sometimes night work is to be expected, but noise protection will be taken care of. In noise protection, they are investigating the possibility of, for example, transparent noise protection walls in cities, and the expert material on this will be prepared later.
MÁV’s Zoltán Szőnyi talked about the land acquisition aspect of the investment, i.e. how the state appropriates properties that are in the way of construction. The valuer of the government office in Budapest determines the value of the properties, and the purchase offers are sent out based on this. Owners have 30 days to accept offers. If the owner does not accept this, the expropriation is initiated at the government office, and the authority makes the expropriation decision. It is a relief for the people of Dunavarsány that no residential buildings are affected there, so no one has to move because of the investment.
Transport shock of the railway outage
Locals interested in the public forum asked the experts several questions. A speaking man talks about how the temporary cessation of train services is a great inconvenience to the locals. There are indeed Pótlóbu, but they are in traffic jams during peak hours on the way to Budapest, there is no separate lane. “It is not suitable for daily commuting” because of the load on public roads, he said. “Not all workplaces tolerate this.” The representatives of the companies could not say too much about this, but they promised to forward the complaint to Volánbus, which provides the replacement buses.
In this regard, a woman added that the “leech people” had not even “seen a hoof cut” on this section of the line. Technical manager Zsolt Vizi talks about the fact that since the safety devices on the line have already been dismantled, the trains cannot run. 160 kilometers of track sections have to be handled at the same time, and if they were to be “split into sections”, the entire investment would take even longer. Once the technical handover takes place (summer 2025), passenger trains will also be able to run.
Several speakers expressed their indignation at the fact that “no one cares” about how terribly congested the roads leading to Budapest are. A woman tried to convey the difficulties in the life of the Dunavarsány agglomeration: it happens that she boarded one of the Volánbusz flights in Dunavarsány at 9 o’clock, and then there was a traffic jam, and the flight arrived at Népliget at 12 noon.
Some were very sorry that no one from Volánbusz was present. According to the man, there are serious problems with the bus service. Flight cancellations, delays, poor technical condition, too few seats – he listed. It happens that by the time the bus reaches Dunavarsány from a settlement further away, there are no more seats on it.
“It will be hard to bear this for three years”
– He told.
The specialists talked about the fact that they are the representatives of the contractors, they did not plan the project. They emphasized that the agglomeration is in the most difficult situation on the entire line, because the number of cars has increased greatly in recent years. They think that the transport problems of the region will be solved in the long term by convenient, fast, closed track transport.
Another questioner asks whether, when the track will be suitable for 160 km/h traffic, there will be passenger trains that will be able to travel at that speed. This is not the competence of the experts present – the representatives of the company answer, but to reach the mentioned speed, more trains are needed.
Several people inquired about noise protection solutions and also asked how noisy the trains would be. The technical manager said that different regulations apply to daytime and nighttime traffic, trains can run at a maximum of 60 decibels. According to the interviewer, this is very loud, the noise will be unbearable in the section where there will be no noise protection wall. A large part of the settlement will have noise protection walls, where it is not possible to create them, passive noise protection will be tried there, for example, the windows of the houses of the affected residents will be replaced with special windows.
Encrypted contracts, Chinese credit, costs of 800 billion
The total cost of the railway construction project is around HUF 1,400 billion, of which the 160-kilometer Hungarian section is estimated at around HUF 800 billion. The investment consists of an 85 percent Chinese state loan to the Hungarian government, but no more details are known because the loan agreement was classified for ten years.
According to critics of the project, the return on the investment is extremely doubtful within the foreseeable future, the government also recently argues that the east-west transport corridors have become difficult to use due to the war in Ukraine, and this will certainly continue to be the case in the coming years. This is why trade routes leading from south to north are being valued, such as the renovation of the Budapest-Belgrade railway line.
Incidentally, the journalists of Investigate Europe traveled the Budapest-Belgrade line, and their article about it was published on Telex. Their writing received a Quality Journalism Award.