East Link Project

Railways in Sweden, with the planned Ostlänken indicated in orange.

The East Link Project (Swedish: Ostlänken) is a planned high-speed rail project in Sweden, intended to run from Södertälje (just south of Stockholm) to Linköping.

The time plan is to start building by 2017, with completion scheduled within the next eleven years. The construction cost for the new 160-kilometre railway is calculated to be 30 billion SEK. A detailed plan from the Swedish rail administration was published in December 2008; the Swedish government gave the go ahead in August 2012.[1]

The railway will allow train speeds of 320 kilometres per hour (200 mph). Long-distance trains would call at Stockholm Central Station and Södertälje Syd before joining the new line, on which there would be an intermediate stop at Norrköping, and reach Linköping about 40 minutes faster than by the existing line. Between Södertälje and Norrköping, regional trains would make additional stops at Vagnhärad and Skavsta Airport, and make a brief detour onto the existing line to Nyköping.

In a little more distant future, a new railway connecting Linköping-Göteborg via Jönköping is planned, called Götalandsbanan. Together, the Ostlänken and Götalandsbanan railways would allow trains to travel between Stockholm-Göteborg in under two hours.

External links

References

  1. ↑ Swedish high speed lines to go ahead, Railway Gazette International, 29 August 2012.
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