HUNGARY: Construction work on the second phase of the project to add capacity to Budapest’s Southern Circle railway ring between Kelenföld and Ferencváros started on January 15, the Ministry of Construction & Transport has announced.
Works commenced on the Buda side of the city with the removal of trees from the alignment of the extra tracks; 2 000 new trees are to be planted as part of the project.
The scope of the scheme covers the creation of a four-track section on 1·7 km of route between Kelenföld and Tétényi út; three tracks are to be provided on the next 2 km section to the bridge over the River Danube. The remaining 700 m from the Pest side of the bridge to the junction west of Ferencváros is also to be quadrapled. The lead contractor is V-Híd Zrt.
Triple-tracking of the 500 m long bridge over the River Danube was completed in August 2022 as the first stage of the upgrading.
Two new stations are to be built, at Közvágóhíd, providing connections to HÉV suburban lines H6 and H7, and at Nádorkert.
To cover the HF338bn project cost, the government is seeking co-financing from the EU’s Connecting Europe Facility 2. CEF is one of the few EU funding instruments covering transport to which the Hungarian administration led by Prime Minister Viktor Orbán currently has access. This is because of political tensions between the EU and Hungary.
In the next stages of the project, a third station would be built at Népliget, providing interchange to metro Line M3, and a flyover would be built over the tracks of Ferencváros.
The southern ring handles large volumes of freight and passenger traffic, and it carries three European TEN-T corridors across the River Danube.
When the works have been completed, more long-distance passenger trains would be able to run through Budapest without needing to reverse at any of the city’s three main line termini, and more frequent suburban trains are also envisaged.
