ELBAHU III
posted on 9th Apr 2026 19:50
The main negative of the entire construction is that the ELBAHU project did not bring the installation of an automatic train protection. Let us repeat that the basic criterion in this matter in the Czech Republic and Slovakia is that if there was no ATP on the line before the reconstruction, it is not possible to newly install a class B train protection (national ATP) in EU-funded projects, but it is necessary to install a class A train protection (ETCS).
The meaning of the described requirement is clear: to motivate European countries and their railways to introduce new, digital technology and, conversely, not to develop the expansion of old national ATPs. However, this logically correct theoretical level in practice brings many complications and paradoxes resulting, unfortunately, from the economic and technical complexity of ETCS.
On the network of the Czech infrastructure manager Správa železnic there are situations where, for this very reason, no ATP with signal transmission to the driver's cabs is installed after the modernization of a main line, since the launch of ETCS is planned in the following period. This procedure is not exactly optimal in terms of lower operational safety, but we are able to tolerate it temporarily, although sometimes it can mean years of waiting.
However, it is different with branch lines. Here we are witnessing a situation where a line originally without train protection will not receive the stationary part of ETCS during reconstruction or modernization, because it does not make economic or operational sense, but at the same time it will not receive class B ATP either. So the result of the fight against the expansion of old national ATPs is that on such lines, trains will ultimately run only under the responsibility of the drivers for decades to come.
Contraindications to ETCS installation
The same thing happened on the Bánovce n. O. - Humenné line. If the relevant institutions (ŽSR, Ministry of Finance, EU) decided from a purely technical point of view to install a lineside ETCS on this section of only 33 km in length, even if only Level 1, an isolated island would be created in the far east of the country, directly connected to several other lines that will probably never receive ETCS.
It will also take a long time for ETCS to actually reach from Žilina to Košice as part of the obligation to install an ATP on the TEN-T network by 2030, which is also problematic for most EU countries. Then, extending this technology further to Čierná nad Tisou and Maťovce, so that the Bánovce nad Ondavou - Humenné line can be connected to the ETCS network, has a very long time horizon; now the lineside ETCS to Čierna nad Tisou (on the border to Ukraine) is planned for 2034.
If the relevant institutions decided to install ETCS between Bánovce n. O. and Humenné, it would be a significant complication from an operational point of view, because this line contains a mixture of electric and diesel vehicles of various types and operator. So the idea that all these vehicles would receive an ETCS OBU in order to introduce the ETCS-only operation on Bánovce n. O. - Humenné line belongs to the realm of science fiction. Just look at how it turned out on the Bratislava - Žilina line, a major corridor with ETCS Level 1, where exclusive operation is currently planned to be introduced from 1 January 2031, twenty years (!) after the the lineside ETCS started to work from Bratislava to the north.
Just ensuring that older ZSSK electric locomotives running REX trains to/from Košice undergo a retrofit of the on-board ETCS would be difficult, not to mention the locomotives of ZSSK CARGO, which is constantly in financial difficulties. Hypothetically, mixed operation of trains running under and without ETCS supervision would be closer to reality, if it were not for the most likely scenario that there would be no vehicles with ETCS OBU running at all on the Bánovce nad Ondavou - Humenné section. The resulting safety of operation would therefore be the same as now without any ATP, plus the effect of money wasted on installing the lineside ETCS.
A stalemate
All this has brought the Bánovce n. O. - Humenné line to a stalemate, as it is practically impossible to install any ATP during a major modernization of the line. The paradox is that thanks to the modernization of the line, the speed of trains has been increased, although the safety of operation by ATP has not been increased; according to Slovak legislation, trains without signal transmission to the drier‘s cabs can travel at a maximum speed of 120 km/h, while in the Czech Republic it is a maximum of 100 km/h.
If we take into account that the line structures are planned for a lifespan of 50 years (tunnels and bridges for 100 years), this means that there will be a preserved state here until approximately 2070, in which trains run only under the responsibility of the train drivers... And this unfortunately also applies to other lines in Slovakia, but also in some other countries.
So the EU's originally well-intentioned plan to support railway modernization and increase its safety has turned into the exact opposite, at least on regional and local lines: lines without ATP increase the risk of an accident for the long future.
