Hungary is ready to provide a high-speed train for operation on the Mukacheve-Budapest route, but Ukraine should repair the section of the railroad tracks located on its territory.
Ukraine’s Minister of Infrastructure Volodymyr Omelian announced this in an interview with the UNIAN news agency, the CFTS portal writes. In particular, the minister commented on the prospects for launch of new international trains to European countries.
"There is a Mukacheve-Budapest route, but it already has narrow-gauge tracks. It is necessary to repair 300 meters of railroad tracks, then this train can be aunched. The Hungarians are even ready to provide their own high-speed train," said Omelian.
As the CFTS portal reported, the Ukrainian Railways public joint-stock company’s Board Chairman Wojciech Balczun has said that negotiations are underway on establishment of a rail link between Mukacheve and Budapest.
"I met with the leadership of the Hungarian railways because we want to modernize the infrastructure in Mukacheve so that trains can travel from there to Budapest, just like trains travel to Przemysl from Kyiv," said Balczun.
Omelian recently announced that work was currently underway on a project that would link Hungary with the Zakarpattia region via a European-gauge railway.
The section with the longest combined rail tracks (1.520-mm plus 1.435-mm (the European gauge) rail tracks) in Ukraine is in the Zakarpattia region on the Chop-Batieve-Mukacheve segment (about 40 kilometers, electrified) and the Batieve-Korolevo-Diakove segment (about 80 kilometers).
