At 8 a.m. on October 21, the Hungarian section of the Budapest–Belgrade railway line came to life: the overhead line was energized. Two Gigant locomotives began trial operations on the section between Dunavarsány and Kunszentmiklós (south of Budapest), rumbling along the newly renovated track to Taksony and back, Világgazdaság reports.
The huge vehicles tested the newly renovated track all day long. A Nohab locomotive also tried to keep up with them, with little success. The power of the Gigants has now put the modernized track to the test – and it can already withstand the strain. A video of the first test runs shows the Gigants in action.
MÁV Class V63 “Gigant”. Photo: Wikipedia / public domain
The development of the Budapest-Belgrade railway line is one of the largest infrastructure investments in Hungary. The Serbian section has already been handed over: passenger trains now travel at 200 kilometers per hour between Belgrade and Novi Sad.
In Hungary, the track has been renewed all the way to Kelebia (southern Hungary, railway crossing into the Serbian province of Vojvodina is located here) in the direction of Subotica (Szabadka), and the entire section will be an electrified, double-track, high-speed railway.
The aim of the investment is to transport Chinese freight from Piraeus in Greece to Central Europe as quickly as possible, primarily via Hungary. The railway line is part of the trans-European TEN-T network, making it a strategic corridor from an EU logistics perspective.
It is estimated that the travel time for freight trains between Budapest and Belgrade could be reduced from the current 8-9 hours to less than 3.5 hours. This will be a significant advantage for freight transport between the Balkans and Central Europe.
The Hungarian section is being constructed by MÁV Zrt. (Hungarian State Railways). The works involved over 150 kilometers of new railway track, 225,000 cubic meters of concrete foundation, and more than 1,300 overhead line support columns.
With the test runs underway, the development is entering its final phase: the technical handover will follow soon, ahead of the official opening to traffic.
If everything goes according to plan, not only will the Gigants be rumbling along the tracks in the spring of 2026, but regular passenger and freight transport will also begin. By then, the entire length of the railway line, from Budapest to Belgrade – approximately 350 kilometers – will be operational, concluding a decade of planning and construction.
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Handover of Budapest-Belgrade Railway Line’s Hungarian Section Revealed
With this investment, Hungary will in the future offer the fastest transport route between the Far East and Western Europe via Greek ports.Continue reading
Via Világgazdaság, Featured image: Pixabay
The post Milestone for the Budapest–Belgrade Railway: First Test Run on the Hungarian Section appeared first on Hungary Today.
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