EU to support new rail line on Sweden’s east coast

The EU’s TEN-T Programme will co-finance with almost €1 million a study on improving the East Coast rail line near Sundsvall in Sweden. The project aims to improve the reliability of regional passenger and freight traffic and reduce the environmental impact of transport.

Sundsvall hosts two important rail junctions between the north-south, east-west and the Tunadal line, which currently present important bottlenecks due to shunting operations. Adding more tracks to the junctions would solve the bottleneck, and electrifying the Tunadal line that connects the Port of Sundsvall to the country’s main rail network would help reduce the pollution caused by the engine change.

This study will come up with a plan for two triangular junctions and the electrification of the line. The scope is to eliminate a technical bottleneck, ensuring a better connectivity to the port and its hinterland, while improving the traffic fluidity on the East Coast line. The project is also expected to boost intermodality of freight transport in eastern Sweden, improve the reliability of the passenger and freight rail traffic and increase the attractiveness of the Port of Sundsvall.

The project was selected for EU funding with the assistance of external experts under the TEN-T Annual Call 2013, priority ‘Rail transport’. Its implementation will be monitored by INEA, the European Commission’s Innovation and Networks Executive Agency.

The project is to be completed by December 2015.