A Second Agreement Between Správa Železnic And SNCF

On 24 April 2020, Správa železnic (the Railway administration, until 31 December 2019 SŽDC) signed an agreement with SNCF on the provision of services in preparation for the construction of high-speed lines in the Czech Republic. The contract was concluded by video conference with Jiří Svoboda, General Manager of Správa železnic, and Diego Diaz, President of SNCF International.

The contract is another logical and follow-up step that will ensure continuous check of documentation for building ground decisions and continuation of work on other technical regulations, which will enable not only further stages of HSL project preparation in the future, but also their construction, commissioning, regular operation and maintenance.

Jiří Svoboda, General Director of Správa železnic, says: „In order to meet the strategic goal of starting the HSL construction in 2025 and putting it into operation three years later, the continuation of cooperation with SNCF is the optimal solution. Quality project preparation will reduce the costs of subsequent construction and operation of the new lines. Cooperation with SNCF provides us with proven and optimised technical solutions. All lines of the French LGV system form a gradually developing comprehensive network with a number of connections to conventional rail.“

In 2020 and the following years, the pre-project preparation of HSLs will start in full swing, consisting mainly in the processing of documentation for land management. For the next stages, it is essential that the relevant HSL design manual at the building permit documentation level is completed by 2023 at the latest. SNCF experts are able to share with us not only 50 years of French high-speed know-how, but also their foreign experience in building HSL in Morocco, for example. 

The cooperation with SNCF started in April 2019 with an agreement to create a Czech manual for the design of HSLs. The elaboration of the manual was the first detailed contact of SŽDC/Správa železnic with the HSL building in the Czech legislative and technical environment.