After two railway accidents that occurred in Lithuania within two days last week, the head of the infrastructure company LTG Infra, part of the Lithuanian Railways group (Lietuvos gelezinkeliai, LTG), stated that there is a lack of funding to ensure traffic safety.
According to Vitis Zalimas, the track connecting Kaunas with Poland, at the station of Yesa where the accident occurred, "was not completed" – it lacks a railway signaling system.
"In the case of Gudzyunai, where the wagons with gravel overturned, we see potentially technical problems related to the wagon, but in Yesa, the movement was controlled manually by the station duty officer. Manually, because on this first European track there is no so-called interlocking – a signaling system that automatically blocks the path and directs the train in the right direction," Zalimas said in an interview with LRT radio on Tuesday.
"Funding priorities were directed to other areas, and this track remained half-utilized," he added.
According to Zalimas, for safety reasons, LTG Infra is forced to limit train speeds on certain sections: "There are sections, for example, Shashtokai–Alytus, for which we do not have money for maintenance. Since there are no funds for repairs, we reduce the speed to maintain safety."
"The system is old, but it has been maintained and serviced; however, the need for its modernization has existed for many years. We have requested investment funds for system upgrades. But so far we have not received them, and we have been servicing it at our own expense together with a representative of the manufacturer. But now there are no more parts left," Zalimas said.
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