Serbia is prepared to begin passenger services on the Budapest-Belgrade railway line, with only Hungary now holding up its full opening, Serbian Transport Minister Aleksandra Sofronijević has said.
She stated that freight transport has already been operating on the line since 24 February, meaning the railway is partially in use, Szabad Magyar Szó reported.
However, passenger services have not yet started.
Technical issue on the Hungarian side
According to Sofronijević, the remaining obstacle is technical in nature and relates to the Hungarian side of the project.
She said the Hungarian State Railways, MÁV, is responsible for overseeing the ETCS train control system, where a fault has reportedly emerged.
The system is essential for trains operating at speeds of up to 160 km/h, ensuring safe signalling and control. The Serbian minister said the issue must be resolved before passenger traffic can begin.
Serbian trains have already operated in Hungary
Sofronijević also noted that Serbian SOKO trains have already run in Hungary and have received type approval.
She added that once all safety systems are fully operational and the required documentation is in place, the trains will also receive individual operating permits needed for regular passenger services.
Long-delayed mega-project under review
The Budapest–Belgrade railway, a flagship infrastructure project, has faced repeated delays and criticism in recent years.
Analysts have previously pointed to technical and implementation challenges in the multi-billion-forint investment, which has undergone several postponements.
While freight services are now running, passenger transport has yet to begin, leaving the line’s full operational launch still uncertain.
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An absence of functioning ETCS still allows passenger operations at up to 100 kph. While this would significantly extend the journey time to Belgrade it would at least allow direct passenger traffic to resume, bringing a gap that has now been absent for years. A slower train is still better than no train and it’ll still be a lot quicker than the old 8 hour journey time.
I can well imagine the main reason they haven’t contemplated this option is the fact that MAV is unable to russle up a sufficient number of carriages of a standard that can be used in international traffic (e.g. functioning AC is a must) in order to run a half decent timetable. A huge number are out of service, awaiting essential repairs or simply have expired technical certificates and those that remain are service are required for existing international services to Austria. The Serbians are ready to run their Soko trains to Budapest but the optics of only Serbian trains providing passenger traffic is negative for MAV who would be forced to confess that they just don’t have the train sets to commence service so it’s better to blame it on issues with ETCS.