No trains on Belgrade-Budapest route before summer after all

There is no chance that passenger trains on the Belgrade-Budapest railway will start operating before the summer, because according to the statement of the Hungarian Ministry of Construction and Transport, the commissioning of this route can be expected then at the earliest, although a new target date has not been specified.

According to the Hungarian Telex, computer and then physical testing of the train control system will be able to begin only after April 7, which excludes the possibility of the project being completed before the elections in this country, as previously promised by the Hungarian government, reports the portal Savremena politika.

The ministry’s announcement states that one of the mandatory conditions for starting passenger traffic at a speed of 160 kilometers per hour is the commissioning of the ETCS (European Train Control System), its testing, and then obtaining a permit for use after testing. According to Telex, the first round of software testing has now been completed, and the Chinese contractor has received reports on the errors it has identified, which it has undertaken to fix by April 7. After the errors are corrected, the Chinese side will submit a new, improved version of the software, after which its computer testing will begin. After that, physical testing of the system on the track can begin.

According to the report, the vehicles will have to travel 20,000 kilometers without interruption or errors during the computer testing phase in order for the system to be approved for use.

According to the Hungarian ministry, the elimination of all possible errors usually takes at least three months, and in the case of the Budapest-Belgrade railway, according to them, they will try to speed up the process as much as possible. The statement emphasizes that “traffic safety will not be compromised for the sake of speeding up,” that is, that they will not try to circumvent applicable regulations.

As Telex emphasizes, with this statement, the ministry has confirmed what has been known in expert circles for months and what the media has also reported – that the train control system on the Budapest-Belgrade railway will not be completed by the elections. According to Telex portal sources, the most optimistic scenarios in recent weeks have mentioned the end of April or May, but the actual completion of the ETCS is generally estimated for the summer. The work is further complicated by the fact that in the last three months, two of the most experienced ETCS experts, who were needed for computer testing of the system, have left Hungarian Railways (MAV).

Telex portal wrote back in 2023 that Chinese subcontractors on the Budapest-Belgrade project would have problems implementing an ETCS that met European standards.

Ministry of Construction and Transport of Hungary

MAV

Belgrade Budapest high speed railroad