Another piece of the Polish largest infrastructure project, Centralny Port Komunikacyjny (CPK), has been put in place. The new high-speed railway between Warsaw and Łódź, two of the main rail freight hubs in the country, will be funded by the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF). CPK and the Polish Ministry of Funds and Regional Policy signed an agreement with the Centre for EU Transport Projects for 64 million euros.

The money “will enable the financing of the full project documentation (including the construction project) and the documents needed to obtain water permits and a location decision”, CPK mentioned. The 64 million euros coming from CEF cover around 85 per cent of the total costs, set at 75 million euros. The future CPK hub will combine air, road, and rail freight and passenger transport. This is not the first EU investment in the initiative. In 2021, over 24 million euros were unlocked via CEF funds for the feasibility studies of the Warsaw-Łódź-Sieradz-Poznań line as well as for the construction of the tunnel in Łódź.

CPK and rail freight

When it comes to rail freight, the CPK project will focus in particular on intermodality and the transport of containers and semi-trailers. In addition, a brand new terminal will be implemented near the airport and some more will be built along CPK’s railway network. All these initiatives will lead to the creation of a new transport system in Poland. The project is quite significant for the European Union as well since the Warsaw-Łódź line lies at the heart of the North Sea-Baltic Corridor of the TEN-T network. Moreover, the section is part of the “Y” railway, linking Warsaw and Łódź with two other big Polish rail freight locations, Wrocław and Poznań.

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