Lithuania starts the project of electrification of the railroad section leading to the border with Belarus, in order to speed up communication between Vilnius and Minsk.

Lithuania starts the project of electrification of the railroad section leading to the border with Belarus, in order to speed up communication between Vilnius and Minsk.



Lithuanian Prime Minister Algirdas Butkevičius attended the ceremony of launching the construction.



When electrification of the Kyviškės-Vilnius-Kena-state border section with Belarus will be completed, by March 2016, the journey between Lithuanian and Belorussian capitals will be reduced by 30 minutes, and will take 2 hours.



During the first stage of the project, a 28.6 kilometre-long section, Kyviškės-Vilnius-Kena will be electrified, and by March 2016, it will have over 2,000 metal constructions.



Diesel trains on the route Vilnius-Minsk will be gradually replaced by the electric trains.





Prime minister says that cross-border services between Vilnius and Minsk are important not only for passenger transportation, but also for freight operations, because the electric trains’ wayfaring costs are by about 30 percent lower than those of diesel trains, which is very important for enhancing Lithuania's competitiveness and attracting more cargo to Klaipeda Seaport, from the Eastern European and Asian countries.



Total value of the project is estimated at LTL 94 million (EUR 27.2 million).



SHOTLIST



Prime Minister Butkevičius symbolically launches the construction



Soundbite (Lithuanian)

STASYS DAILYDKA, Director General of JSC Lithuanian Railways:

If we use, on the same route, a diesel-powered locomotive, compared to an electrified one, we lose around 30 percent of costs.



Shots of a railway



Soundbite (Russian)

VALERIJ STROMUK, Deputy Head of the Belorussian Railways:

We are intensely working on electrifying the ninth transport corridor towards Gomel, we do 80 kilometres per year. Therefore we should reach the Lithuanian border at the same time as Lithuanians reach Belorussian.



Shots of electrified trains



Soundbite (Lithuanian)