Increasing Speed on the Czech Railway Shows in Shorter Journey Times of Trains

”Although the journey times are usually decreased by several minutes, we must be aware that this occurs on rather short line sections. Even then, in many cases we can already compete with road transport including motor cars. Moreover, we gradually modernize more integrated sections on transit corridors with time savings as a result. This can be seen most clearly while travelling by train between Prague and Ostrava but on other routes as well“, says Mr. Jiří Svoboda, Director General of Správa železnic. 

Especially investments into transit corridor lines are paying off. The biggest recent completed investment was a relocation of the line Ejpovice – Plzeň with a new, more than four kilometres long tunnel. Increasing maximum speed up to 160 kph allowed a decrease of fast trains’ journey times from Rokycany to Plzeň from the original 19 minutes in 2018 down only to 11 minutes.

In the section Bohumín – Karviná, journey times of fast trains decreased from 15 minutes last year to the current 10 minutes and they are by 2 additional minutes shorter in the connecting section to Český Těšín. On Rail Transit Corridor IV from Prague to České Budějovice, the completion of a part of the works allowed decreasing journey times: e.g. the fast train from Veselí nad Lužnicí will arrive to České Budějovice in 27 minutes already instead of the original 31 minutes.

A speed increase occurs also on important non-corridor lines. A fast train runs the section from Světlá nad Sázavou to Havlíčkův Brod in 14 minutes this year, whereas the year before last it took by 6 minutes more. Among other fast train lines we can name the one between Pardubice and Liberec where line speed gradually increases in many sections. This will reflect in a transport model change with an important journey times’ decrease when all constructions are complete.

However, Správa železnic does not forget about regional lines either. Modernization of the line Louny – Lovosice decreased journey times considerably, namely from 69 to 52 minutes. Passengers will appreciate shorter journey times also in the sections Kladno-Dubí – Brandýsek, Žďár nad Sázavou – Tišnov or Studénka – Bílovec.

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