High-speed rail line, new sleeping cars coming soon, Bulgaria’s Transport Minister says
Speeds of 140km/h will be possible within days on the revamped Plovdiv to Dimitrovgrad rail line, Bulgaria’s Transport Minister Ivailo Moskovski said on July 13 2012. The distance between the two is just more than 70km.
New sleeping cars will come into service on Bulgarian state railways BDZ within a month, Moskovski said.
New trains with television and internet and capable of running at high speeds would be in service by 2014, he told local television station bTV.
Commenting on thefts of fuel from BDZ trains, in connection with which there have been a number of raids and arrests by police recently, Moskovski said that the company’s losses from thefts of fuel added up to about four to five million leva (about two to 2.5 million euro) a year.
He said that investigators were seeking to establish the full workings of the fuel theft scheme.
“All the honest people who work for the railways deserve respect and consideration, but the job description for the night shift does not say that you should go with a tube and a hose.”
Moskovski said that currently 350 000 people in Bulgaria are entitled to free travel on the railways. Many of them were not from BDZ, he said. If these free rail travel cards were withdrawn, BDZ’s annual revenue would jump by 200 million leva, Moskovski said.
(Photo: casual14)
