€64 million of EU funding for the CPK’s high-speed railway line between Warsaw and Łódź
The European Commission has awarded the company Centralny Port Komunikacyjny (CPK) funding of around PLN 290 million (almost €64 million) from the CEF Connecting Europe Facility for the preparation of the construction project for the strategic High-Speed Railway line between Warsaw and Łódź. The 140-kilometre-long section of HSR will connect the new CPK airport to the rail network, reducing the travel time between Warsaw and Łódź twice.
The funded project includes the development of full design documentation necessary to begin construction of two sections: from Warsaw West to the junction with railway line No. 11 (LK11) in the area of the planned CPK transport hub and from the junction with LK11 to the Łódź Niciarniana railway station.
The scope of the task, for which the EU has granted funding, includes, among other things, the execution of a complete construction project, the acquisition of water permits and location decisions, which precede the application for a construction permit.
The value of the project was estimated at around PLN 350 million, of which 85 per cent, around PLN 290 million (€63.6 million), is EU funded.
The CPK airport, together with the new HSR line between Warsaw and Łódź, is an important part of the Trans–European Transport Network (TEN-T), the EU’s strategic transport infrastructure. It is very good news that the European Commission has consistently kept it on the list of its priorities to be co-funded from Community funds,
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Design work is already well advanced for the HSR line between Warsaw and Łódź. The documentation for the Warsaw-CPK section has been prepared since November last year by the consortium of Biuro Projektów “Metroprojekt” and Sud Architekt Polska. The design of the further section of the line from the CPK node to Łódź was awarded to a consortium of Egis Poland, Egis Rail and Jaf-Geotechnika. The Warsaw-Łódź section will be part of railway line No. 85, called “spoke” No. 9. Together with a further section from Łódź to Wrocław and Poznań, they will form the so-called HSR line “Y” (from its shape). In the first stage, trains running on this route will be able to reach an operational speed of up to 250 km/h, and up to 350 km/h in the future (design speed). As a result of the investment, the travel time between Warsaw and Łódź will be reduced to around 45 minutes (today it takes twice as long to complete this route by train). Passengers will be able to reach the CPK airport from Warsaw in around 15 minutes and from Łódź in around half an hour. |
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In EU plans, the Warsaw-Łódź-Poznań/Wrocław railway line is a part of the TEN-T European Transport Corridor North Sea-Baltic Sea. In 2021, the CPK company obtained around PLN 110 million from CEF for the construction project of the CPK’s long-distance HSR tunnel in Łódź and for feasibility studies for the sections: Warsaw – Łódź – Sieradz – Poznań. |
