Northern Greece: Thessaloniki-Ksanthi new railway line “on track”

One of the most important railway projects of the next decade is in motion. “Railway Egnatia”, the country’s next infrastructure vision has already entered its study stage, regarding at least, the eastern section of the line. According to safe information provided at Ypodomes.com, 2 major studies for projects worth 1.2bn euros are in progress.

OSE has initiated studies for Thessaloniki-Amfipoli line section (180 km), a brand-new route design lying east of Thessaloniki heading to the New Port of Kavala and Amfipoli. This will be an electrified, single-track line allowing trains to speed up to 200 km/h. Estimated cost for that section will be 1bn euros as the line will be passing from challenging terrains. It is expected that the project will be having finalized studies till the end of 2019.

The next section (Amfipoli-Toksotes Ksanthis) with a length of 35 km will be also a new route design, moving south from the existing line. Again, it will be a single-track, electrified and high-speed line. Initial studies have been already carried out by ERGOSE, the environmental licensing has been approved and now the project has entered “Stage B” which essentially is securing the necessary funds (approx. 250mn euros) for its implementation.

In total, the two projects will be reducing the length of the existing line by 130 km which means that Thessaloniki and Alexandroupoli will come 3 hours closer to each other, dropping travel time from 6 hours today to less than 3 (!). Thessaloniki to: Kavala will be just an hour, to Ksanthi 90 minutes, to Komotini 2 hours and to Alexandroupoli 2 hours and 45 minutes.

Nikos Karagiannis-ypodomes.com

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