All rail leads to Budapest, but more capacity is needed

What started with a single train between China and Hungary, has turned into a high-in-demand service with three to four trains per week at peak times for Eurasian rail operator RTSB. The company is keen on running the China-Europe train via Budapest, but it needs more capacity on the network.

All traffic from the east is consolidated in Budapest, which has many advantages as a logistics hub, Thomas Palecek from RTSB explained in a recently held RailFreight webinar about the potential of Hungary. It has good infrastructure, good connections and there a lot of industrial companies settled here, a lot of them from China. “We promote Budapest as a hub and gateway to the Central and Eastern European market.”
Consequence of success
That is not to say that the city does not know of any challenges. The popularity of the city also has its consequences. The network is heavily congested, and this congestion is not to be resolved until the freight-only V0 railway line is constructed, explained Akos Ersek from the UIRR.