High speed lines set to enter service in 2025 - not China

[Jamesrob637]

Hi all, will any (predominantly European) high-speed tracks enter traffic this year? Many of Germany's look to be 2026 now, Spain likewise.

TIA

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

The Koralmbahn route in Austria is scheduled to open in December 2025 (Graz-Klagenfurt) creating a Vienna-Graz-Klagenfurt-Villach-Udine-Venice axis.
Not high-speed but I think Berlin-Dresden reopens as a faster route (200km/h instead of 160km/h, on the original/shorter route leaving Berlin).

The northern two-thirds of the new Kapikule-Istanbul 200km/h line is due to open in 2025 - this will be about 150km from Kapikule to Çerkezköy.
When it opens with a much-reduced journey time, there should be scope for improved services from Sofia and beyond, hopefully including a daytime service.
The line terminates at Halkali in Istanbul, where the Marmaray line starts, and a direct connection from Halkali to the airport should also open in 2025 (metro line M11).
The remaining 78km from Çerkezköy on to Halkali, mostly the upgrade and realignment of the existing route, is due in 2030.

I think the Stuttgart 21 upgrade has slipped to 2026.

 

[nwales58]

The ‘baipás de Mérida’ might open soon-ish, 3 km of track giving a 30’ saving on Madrid-Badajoz. Of course, that means a slightly longer journey if you actually want to go to Mérida, a double S-730 splitting at Cáceres seems a fantasy considering demand. With Adif+Renfe I won’t believe it until it really happens.

Someone in spain will have better info.

 

[Jamesrob637]

I think some more Spanish high speed lines should open in late-25
Possibly around Plasencia?

 

[nwales58]

I think some more Spanish high speed lines should open in late-25
Possibly around Plasencia?

Extremedura was last in the news around February when ADIF and the ministry were telling the press that work on the Merida cut-off was expected to be complete in March and AESF (ORR, sort of) could issue its approval in July after which the promised 12 extra trains (i.e. 1 per day each way) could start.

I've seen no news since. Anyone else?

 

[NCT]

I believe the Merida bypass is already open? There are now three Madrid - Badajoz trains every day, up from the previous two. One of them bypasses Merida but reverses at Plasencia with a similar journey time as the other two (no Plasencia but with a Merida reversal).

 

[nwales58]

I believe the Merida bypass is already open? There are now three Madrid - Badajoz trains every day, up from the previous two. ...

Thanks, I hadn't looked at the timetable before posting. The old problem of these being full days ahead is now in the past.

 

[Austriantrain]

I believe the Merida bypass is already open? There are now three Madrid - Badajoz trains every day, up from the previous two. One of them bypasses Merida but reverses at Plasencia with a similar journey time as the other two (no Plasencia but with a Merida reversal).

Wow. An entire new double track HSL for three trains a day, including two bypasses, avoiding 2 of the 4 medium-sized cities in an otherwise completely empty region. Impressive.

(Sarcasm of course, and I do know that Plasencia was never on the direct line).

 

[Sir Felix Pole]

Wow. An entire new double track HSL for three trains a day, including two bypasses, avoiding 2 of the 4 medium-sized cities in an otherwise completely empty region. Impressive.

(Sarcasm of course, and I do know that Plasencia was never on the direct line).

Well, I suppose it might take through services to Lisbon eventually. Elvas to Évora in Portugal was supposed to open this year, but it doesn't look promising.

 

[Austriantrain]

Well, I suppose it might take through services to Lisbon eventually. Elvas to Évora in Portugal was supposed to open this year, but it doesn't look promising.

Oh, it will at some point. Probably 3 trains a day again.

 

[nwales58]

Wow. An entire new double track HSL for three trains a day, including two bypasses, avoiding 2 of the 4 medium-sized cities in an otherwise completely empty region. Impressive.

(Sarcasm of course, and I do know that Plasencia was never on the direct line).

Even more impressive, Plasencia station was modernised and future-proofed with a 400m long platform.

Of course the new alignment to Navalmoral requires a new new Plasencia AV station and that clearly needs 400m platforms. 2x or 4x I wonder?

 

[NCT]

To be fair once Madrid - Lisbon is all done (or mostly done), which isn't far off, I can see a market for 2tph non-stop / limited stop. Then domestic all principle stations could be hourly with reversals at Plasencia and Merida (still faster than today's timings). That would be a reasonable utilisation level by Spanish standards.

On Elvas Evora opens, provided RENFE and CP can find a rolling stock / signalling solution, at ~6 hours journey time there ought to be a market for around 4 trains a day.

 

[HS2isgood]

Well, I suppose it might take through services to Lisbon eventually. Elvas to Évora in Portugal was supposed to open this year, but it doesn't look promising.

Oh, it will at some point. Probably 3 trains a day again.

It is now slated to open 2026-7. As service between Lisbon and Badajoz/Elvas will be PSO, there will be the same daily five trains between Lisbon and Evora, but running to Elvas or Badajoz. Stupidly enough calling at both will require a reversal. Spain has decided to add a Plasencia - Badajoz PSO service 4 times a day on a Class 121, two a day will extend to/from Evora.

Obviously this can change because Spanish PSO plans change a million times before service start.

 

[Austriantrain]

To be fair once Madrid - Lisbon is all done (or mostly done), which isn't far off, I can see a market for 2tph non-stop / limited stop. Then domestic all principle stations could be hourly with reversals at Plasencia and Merida (still faster than today's timings). That would be a reasonable utilisation level by Spanish standards.

To be fair too, that would be a decent timetable - international trains stopping only in Cáceres and Badajoz (maybe Toledo), HS stoppers stopping everywhere, including Plasencia and Mérida city station. Both every two hours. And no Plasencia and Mérida HS stations on the mainline, because they are not needed.

This being Spain, it‘s not what is going to happen. There will be a patchwork of services with no rhyme nor reason and very few stops at some of these over-engineered HS stations. All built with european tax payers‘ money.

 

[LLivery]

To be fair too, that would be a decent timetable - international trains stopping only in Cáceres and Badajoz (maybe Toledo), HS stoppers stopping everywhere, including Plasencia and Mérida city station. Both every two hours. And no Plasencia and Mérida HS stations on the mainline, because they are not needed.

This being Spain, it‘s not what is going to happen. There will be a patchwork of services with no rhyme nor reason and very few stops at some of these over-engineered HS stations. All built with european tax payers‘ money.

I'd imagine Open Access will be already making plans for a frequent Madrid-Lisbon service

 

[dutchflyer]

On quite another area/topic, which also quite surprised me: a dutch newspaper a few days ago had an informative article about Kashmir-the disputed area north of India and told a Hi-Speed railline was opened to there to bring the normal tourists in-special extra attraction being an overdose of military staff. Cannot really remember seen any other topic about this and also highly, highly doubt if in such a mountainous area and in India a railline as HIspeed could even be realised. It would be the normal Jammu to Srinagar (the main cities there) line, linking up with the dense and generally low-speed Indian Railways network. Just for the record this.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 10 Aug 2025 ==

I'd imagine Open Access will be already making plans for a frequent Madrid-Lisbon service

Wonder how they will be considered on the PT=Portuguese side? As fas as I know Portugakl does not have any competitors to CP on the same line, ESpana does and RENFE is also trying out itself into FRance.
Flightradar lists LISboa as 2nd frequent served destination from MADrid main airport, 128 flites/week, #1 being Palma Mallorca, then followed by the Spanish Canary Islands Canarias and Tenerife. BCN=Barcelona, SVL=Sevilla and MLG=Malaga are now much further down the list-which shows that hi-speed frequent railservice can indeed have impact on air-corridors.

 

[NCT]

Again, not strictly a HSL. The current 4-tracking works between Bamberg and Nuremberg (or strictly speaking Strullendorf - Eltersdorf) is meant to be completed in December. Do we know if fast line speeds will be raised to 230km/h over this section? I can only find references to 230km/h in Wikipedia articles and the relevant paragraphs seem to be very old.

Do we know what sort of journey time improvement is Dresdnerbahn going to deliver?

České dráhy to Offer Train Destinations from Copenhagen to Villach and more Connections to Europe while Improving the Quality of Trainsets | České dráhy, a.s.

The timetable for 2026 will bring further extension of travel offers and increased comfort on international and domestic train services operated by České dráhy.

www.ceskedrahy.cz

This article says "Another positive change will be the reduction of the journey time from Prague to Berlin and Hamburg by several dozens of minutes. The journey from Prague to Berlin will take approximately 4 hours ..."

Current journey times (before the Hamberg - Berlin renewal, based on Seat61 times) are already around 4h10m, so it doesn't look as though the saving will be very big?

May have to wait until October for answers when 2026 schedules finally get uploaded.

 

[LLivery]

Wonder how they will be considered on the PT=Portuguese side? As fas as I know Portugakl does not have any competitors to CP on the same line, ESpana does and RENFE is also trying out itself into FRance.
Flightradar lists LISboa as 2nd frequent served destination from MADrid main airport, 128 flites/week, #1 being Palma Mallorca, then followed by the Spanish Canary Islands Canarias and Tenerife. BCN=Barcelona, SVL=Sevilla and MLG=Malaga are now much further down the list-which shows that hi-speed frequent railservice can indeed have impact on air-corridors.

Also wondering the same - I don't know if anything has been said about who'd operate the base service - CP & Renfe joint? With a three hours promised journey time, it'll make a big impact.

 

[Austriantrain]

Also wondering the same - I don't know if anything has been said about who'd operate the base service - CP & Renfe joint? With a three hours promised journey time, it'll make a big impact.

Three Hours is a veeeery long time away, if it happens at all. We are talking of 6 +/- hours for the foreseeable and plenty of single track and capacity restrictions especially around Madrid und Lisbon.

 

[LLivery]

Three Hours is a veeeery long time away, if it happens at all. We are talking of 6 +/- hours for the foreseeable and plenty of single track and capacity restrictions especially around Madrid und Lisbon.

I've seen conflicting info on this, is it not from ~2030? I was under the impression 6hrs is basically from next year

 

[NCT]

Elvas - Evora should be in the final straits (some slope slips delaying completion from what I've read). Talayuela (just west of Oropresa) to Monfrague (just north of) can't be far off either? My understanding is one these two elements are done 6 hours will be possible, subject to rolling stock and staff who can deal with both countries' systems.

3 hours will depend on
- Toledo - Talayuela
- Placensia - Badajoz upped to the 300km/h design speed (ETCS completion)
- Badajoz bypass
- Cacares bypass
- Evora - Lisbon

Don't think these will be done before 2030.

 

[Austriantrain]

Elvas - Evora should be in the final straits (some slope slips delaying completion from what I've read). Talayuela (just west of Oropresa) to Monfrague (just north of) can't be far off either? My understanding is one these two elements are done 6 hours will be possible, subject to rolling stock and staff who can deal with both countries' systems.

3 hours will depend on
- Toledo - Talayuela
- Placensia - Badajoz upped to the 300km/h design speed (ETCS completion)
- Badajoz bypass
- Cacares bypass
- Evora - Lisbon

Don't think these will be done before 2030.

I don‘t any chance of it being done by 2030, especially on the Portuguese side - there is a whole new Tagus crossing involved. We are probably talking about the late 2030s.

 

[Sir Felix Pole]

Évora to Lisbon will be a new line via a relocated Lisbon Airport (assuming that goes ahead) and a new bridge over the Tagus, so well into the 2030s.

The old line takes about 90minutes for about 85 miles.

 

[LLivery]

Elvas - Evora should be in the final straits (some slope slips delaying completion from what I've read). Talayuela (just west of Oropresa) to Monfrague (just north of) can't be far off either? My understanding is one these two elements are done 6 hours will be possible, subject to rolling stock and staff who can deal with both countries' systems.

3 hours will depend on
- Toledo - Talayuela
- Placensia - Badajoz upped to the 300km/h design speed (ETCS completion)
- Badajoz bypass
- Cacares bypass
- Evora - Lisbon

Don't think these will be done before 2030.

Definitely not 2030, then

 

[nwales58]

Near-miss for this topic, January 2026 and 200 km/h on the Serbian section only, RGI report:

China Railway Signal & Communication sets up ETCS test facility in Hungary

HUNGARY: China Railway Signal & Communication has established a facility in Hungary to test ETCS Level 2 signalling equipment it is deploying on the Budapest - Beograd railway corridor.

www.railwaygazette.com

Minister of Construction & Transport János Lázár announced on August 13 that the Hungarian section of the Budapest – Beograd corridor would reopen in January 2026 following modernisation. Three pairs of international trains will run daily between the two capitals, using ‘very high-quality vehicles’, and would only stop at Kiskunhalas in Hungary.

So the signalling side of the impasse has been resolved. Turns out that the chinese ETCS level 2 equivalent not only had not been validated against ETCS but also had never dealt with level crossings (of course there are tens of thousands of kilometres of wholly-segregated lines in China). Setting up a test plant in Hungary was the solution.

No news on how the hungarian-chinese contractor-hungarian government disputes were resolved though.

Side track: CSRC will then have a validated ETCS implementation to sell in Europe.

 

[cle]

Nothing in France so far?

 

[stuu]

The Bordeaux-Toulouse line has some work under way but not actual main construction of the new line, nothing new will be open before 2032

 

[Sir Felix Pole]

The Bordeaux-Toulouse line has some work under way but not actual main construction of the new line, nothing new will be open before 2032

Yes, four-tracking north of Toulouse towards Montauban is underway to take trains into the city from the LGV.

There is also the 'Roissy-Picardie' link - not high-speed (160kph), but will enable TGVs to reach Amiens from Charles de Gaulle and the south, due to open next year.

 

[Backroom_boy]

On quite another area/topic, which also quite surprised me: a dutch newspaper a few days ago had an informative article about Kashmir-the disputed area north of India and told a Hi-Speed railline was opened to there to bring the normal tourists in-special extra attraction being an overdose of military staff. Cannot really remember seen any other topic about this and also highly, highly doubt if in such a mountainous area and in India a railline as HIspeed could even be realised. It would be the normal Jammu to Srinagar (the main cities there) line, linking up with the dense and generally low-speed Indian Railways network. Just for the record this.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 10 Aug 2025 ==


Wonder how they will be considered on the PT=Portuguese side? As fas as I know Portugakl does not have any competitors to CP on the same line, ESpana does and RENFE is also trying out itself into FRance.
Flightradar lists LISboa as 2nd frequent served destination from MADrid main airport, 128 flites/week, #1 being Palma Mallorca, then followed by the Spanish Canary Islands Canarias and Tenerife. BCN=Barcelona, SVL=Sevilla and MLG=Malaga are now much further down the list-which shows that hi-speed frequent railservice can indeed have impact on air-corridors.

Is the new line in Portugal standard gauge or Iberian? Can't see open access operators wanting to get into gauge changing stock

 

[Jamesrob637]

Again, not strictly a HSL. The current 4-tracking works between Bamberg and Nuremberg (or strictly speaking Strullendorf - Eltersdorf) is meant to be completed in December. Do we know if fast line speeds will be raised to 230km/h over this section? I can only find references to 230km/h in Wikipedia articles and the relevant paragraphs seem to be very old.

Do we know what sort of journey time improvement is Dresdnerbahn going to deliver?

České dráhy to Offer Train Destinations from Copenhagen to Villach and more Connections to Europe while Improving the Quality of Trainsets | České dráhy, a.s.

The timetable for 2026 will bring further extension of travel offers and increased comfort on international and domestic train services operated by České dráhy.

www.ceskedrahy.cz

This article says "Another positive change will be the reduction of the journey time from Prague to Berlin and Hamburg by several dozens of minutes. The journey from Prague to Berlin will take approximately 4 hours ..."

Current journey times (before the Hamberg - Berlin renewal, based on Seat61 times) are already around 4h10m, so it doesn't look as though the saving will be very big?

May have to wait until October for answers when 2026 schedules finally get uploaded.

Nürnberg-Bamberg is already 4 tracks since June I believe.