"Based on information available to me, public tenders in all phases have taken place and construction works on all sections will begin this year. So, I believe that things will finally get off the ground and I hope that the implementation of this project will be completed next year," he told LRT Radio.
The Rail Baltica Project Directorate said that it planned to complete work on the 120-kilometer European-gauge line from the border to Kaunas in late 2015. This segment of Rail Baltica is estimated to cost almost 1.5 billion litas (EUR 435m).
The Transport Ministry said in a press release that the success of the entire Rail Baltica project would depend on Poland, because a North-South railway line linking the Baltic countries with Germany and the rest of Western Europe will be built via the neighboring country.
The state railway operator Lietuvos Geležinkeliai (Lithuanian Railways) has formally launched construction on a 103.2-million-litas Rail Baltica section from the Lithuanian-Polish border to Mockava on Tuesday. This is the second, and so far the biggest, Rail Baltica project in Lithuania. Work on this section is planned to be completed by the end of 2014.
Lithuania's railways were built to the Russian gauge of 1,520 millimeters, whereas the European gauge is narrower, of 1,435 millimeters.
