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Infrastructure: Ministry of Transports and Chinese partners might finish bullet train project this year
The Ministry of Transports and the Chinese partners might this year finish the project of the Romanian stretch of the bullet train connecting Vienna, Budapest, Bucharest and Constanta (south-eastern Romania), Romanian Minister of Transports Ramona Manescu told the Antena 3 TV station on Saturday, January 18.
'We are talking together with the Chinese partners about the bullet train connecting Vienna, Budapest, Bucharest and Constanta. From the border to Constanta we can build this stretch without European funds too. This year we hope to be able to finish at least the project due to which we should effectively begin building the railway,' said the Minister of Transports.
'By the end of 2014-20 we want to have bullet trains in Romania, goods trains should be able to run at 120 kilometres per hour, passenger ones, at 160 kilometres per hour and the bullet train from the border to Constanta should run at 200 kilometres per hour,' also said Manescu.
She said that some years ago the authorities laid emphasis on road transport to the detriment of the railway one and at present one of the main aims of the Ministry of Transports is to transfer as much as possible of the goods transport and the passenger one to roads from the railways, which should be cheaper.
In late November Premier Victor Ponta said that, following the China-South-Eastern Europe business forum, which was held in Bucharest, the Chinese side made this suggestion in order to promote their new technology of bullet trains and made it clear that, for the beginning, there would be a first pilot project amounting to 500 million euros.