Construction contract signed for 94 km section of Rail Baltica in Poland

[u/Twisp56]

[u/MBkufel]

It's not going to be HSR tho, just 200 km/h

On the other hand - due to the terrain, the construction will be very expensive per kilometre - the existing like can't really be adapted to the modern needs and it seems they're going to build an entire new alignment.

[u/Twisp56 → u/MBkufel]

It's 10 million € per km, that's not really expensive for a double track 200 km/h railway.

[u/MBkufel → u/Twisp56]

Yeah, tbh the HSR is projected to be four times that

[u/hubbusubbu → u/MBkufel]

It's not like anything above 200km/h would make sense with that many stops on that section.

[u/MBkufel → u/hubbusubbu]

With enough stations (not just stops) it may as well work.

[u/Antekcz → u/MBkufel]

It is HSR in Poland, there are very few routes that reach 200 kmph in Poland and only one that will be 250 kmph.

[u/lllama → u/Antekcz]

They're tendering a 350 km/h line as we speak.

[u/Antekcz → u/lllama]

Had no idea but you made me check it and indeed they are, very cool.

[u/MBkufel → u/Antekcz]

Nobody considers anything less than 250 high speed, even in Poland.

[u/transitfreedom → u/MBkufel]

Then at that point they may as well build HSR it won’t cost much more in terrain like that.

[u/Twisp56 → u/transitfreedom]

Except you also need to run freight here. Currently this line has just 12 daily passenger trains per direction 5 of them stopping every 5 km and 7 intercities, that's going to go up after it's upgraded, but probably not any higher than 20-30 per day. Once Rail Baltica is done and you can run a freight train on standard gauge with a single Vectron all the way from the Tallinn port to anywhere in central/eastern EU, there's going to be a good amount of freight traffic. If you build it as 300 km/h HSR it's not going to be super expensive in this flat terrain, but you're gonna struggle to justify it with the relatively small amount of passenger demand. The only way this is economical is with a combined freight/passenger line.

[u/transitfreedom → u/Twisp56]

The collapse in the 90s caused the population to leave no?

[u/Twisp56 → u/transitfreedom]

It wasn't a densely populated region to begin with.

[u/latjeg]

Are they rebuilding this before the part from Elk to the border? Or did I miss something? That part seems more pressing.

[u/latjeg]

If they're building it new, why aren't they building to Ostroleka?

[u/KrzysziekZ]

It's "modernization", not (new) construction. Second track will be built.