The design work of the railway line Rail Baltica has started. On Friday, the company Lietuvos Gelezinkeliai (Lithuanian Railways) signed a contract with the private company Kelprojektas on the drafting of a special plan and environmental impact assessment of the railway line to be built from the Polish state border to Marijampole. The contract was signed by CEO of Lietuvos Gelezinkeliai Stasys Dailydka and head of Kelprojektas Algimantas Medziausis.
A contract with the international company SYSTRA S.A, winner of the second tender, will be signed in August. The first contract is valued at 450,000 litas (130,425 euros) and the second one – at over 1 million litas (289,830 euros), informs ELTA/LETA.
Kelprojektas is obliged to draft the special plan of the railway line in 13 months, yet Medziausis told at a news conference on Friday that it would be sought to carry out the work sooner.
"From the economic point of view, we are interested in completing the work as soon as possible as we would be able to save up in this way," Medziausis said.
The building of the railway line will start after the special plan and assessment of the environmental impact are drafted and the necessary land is acquired for the new railway.
The Rail Baltica project foresees that multiple units would go at the speed of 160 kilometres per hour on the route Warsaw-Helsinki and freight trains would be able to go at the speed of 120 kilometres per hour. It will be possible to reach Warsaw from Kaunas by train in a few hours.