Bulgaria to Upgrade 600 km of Rail Tracks for Speed up to 160 km/h by 2020
Thursday, 01 January 1970
Bulgaria plans to upgrade its railway network to comprise some 600 kilometres of track accommodating speed of up to 160 kilometres per hour by 2020, the country’s deputy transport minister said.
The transport ministry's main goal is to complete the upgrade of the southeast-bound railway track from the country's northwestern border with Serbia to the border with Turkey and Greece, and the reconstruction of the Plovdiv-Burgas section, deputy transport minister Petar Kirov told a conference in Sofia.
The government will also attach priority importance to the construction of intermodal terminals, he added.
In May Bulgaria wrapped up a 70 mln levs ($47 million/35.8 million euro) project for the construction of a 18-kilometre (km) electrified railway between the southern town of Svilengrad and the Turkish border.
A year ago, in July 2012, Bulgaria officially reopened for traffic a 67 km railway line between Plovdiv and Dimitrovgrad. The 220 million euro ($292 million) project, which also involved the electrification of the rail line, received funding from the EU's Instrument for Structural Policies for Pre-Accession (ISPA) programme, the European Investment Bank and the state budget.