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Lithuania to build new railway track to Pabrade military training area

BC, Vilnius, 23.01.2019.Print version
The Lithuanian government approved on Wednesday plans to build a new 500-meter railway track to the Pabrade military training area in the eastern district of Svencionys, informed LETA/BNS.

The project is estimated to cost a million euros in total. Railways are often used for moving military equipment.  


The Cabinet instructed the Defense Ministry to supervise work and earmark sources of funding. The 1,520-millimeter gauge track will be a spur of the railway line between Naujoji Vilnia, a suburb of Vilnius, and the border with Latvia. 


"This is a strategic project; it will facilitate the arrival of allies," Defense Minister Raimundas Karoblis told the Cabinet. 


"It is also a logistical solution for continuous movements between the training areas in Rukla and Pabrade," he said.   


Under the government resolution, the new spur is to be built by February 2020, in time for Defender 2020, a large-scale military exercise planned to be held in Lithuania at the start of that year. 4


Some 720,000 euros will be provided from the Defense Ministry's budget appropriations to build the track and install signaling, communications, power supply and traffic control systems. 


The ministry and the state railway company Lietuvos Gelezinkeliai (Lithuanian Railways) will provide, in equal parts, an estimated 240,000 euros for upgrading a level crossing. 


In an effort to ensure the combat readiness of NATO forces, plans call for running exercises for the redeployment of military personnel and equipment by rail on an annual basis in the future, according to the government resolution.






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