Czechia comes in with a nearly 800 million euro lifeline for railway hub

The railway hub at Česká Třebová has been out of Czechia’s sight for many years. Its last major renovation took place in the 1960s. The hub, for which there is no alternative route, has been nearing the end of its life. At last, Prague is coming in to revive the critical piece of infrastructure with a 780 million euro injection.

Česká Třebová is a crucial hub for both freight and passenger traffic. The planned renovation will refurbish all platforms, allow for higher passing speeds at 80 kilometres an hour, reduce noise pollution and connect the hub to the central dispatcher in Prague. It also has been long overdue. Czechia discussed the modernisation for four decades, during which time the hub seriously degraded.

Just last week, on 24 June, an overhead line in the hub broke and fell onto the tracks. It stalled traffic for seven hours after a freight train ran into the broken line. It is an illustrative example of the depreciation of the six-decade old hub.

A busy corridor

Downtime at the site in Česká Třebová hurts traffic, but even more so now that the only diversion route through Vysočina is being reconstructed. Freight trains would have to travel through Austria if the hub is out of service.

Metrans operates container transshipment at Česká Třebová and provided a comment to Czech publication Idnes: “Even in normal traffic, the corridor is so busy and used that any irregularity that happens on the railway, whether due to the recent accident in Pardubice or the breakdown of an overhead line, practically paralyses us”, member of Metrans’ board Martin Hořínek said. “It is hard for anyone to imagine a situation where dispatchers will give priority to freight trains and trains with people will stop. Even though the decrees are thinking about that.”

The Czech railway administration is now looking for a contractor for the extensive modernisation of the hub. It wants to start the upgrades at the end of 2024, and they will continue until 2031 according to current plans. In addition to Czech funds, the EU also provides a part of the required money through the Connecting Europe Facility.

Also read:

• EIB to lend Czechia half a billion euros for rail modernisation
• Metrans’ terminal in Slovakia just got bigger
• CargoBeamer wants to build a terminal near German-Czech border