The railway line between Budapest and Belgrade passes mainly the Bács-Kiskun County and the Serbian Province of Vojvodina. The landscape is characterised by countless fields, dead straight highways and endless widths.
The outdated railway between Belgrade and Budapest will be modernised. The travel time should be decreased from eight hours to three and a half hours, and the maximum speed of the track is designed to be. Train speed will be however limited to 160 km/h, due to signalling, so the line will not be high-speed at all. According to the plans, the track should be modernised by early 2023.
Modernization of the Hungarian section
The Hungarian section of the project was announced in 2015 to cost HUF 472 billion and expected to be completed as of 2017–2018. Currently it is expected to cost HUF 949 billion with interest. In Hungary, the project is carried out by Kínai-Magyar Vasúti Nonprofit Zrt, a Hungarian-Chinese joint venture of MÁV Zrt. with China Railway International Corporation and China Railway International Group. According to one estimate, the works on this section could begin in 2021, as one year is needed for the public procurement procedures, and two years for the planning and negotiation phase. The investment is widely criticised as it will never recover its costs, it is estimated that the investment could only show a return in 2400 years.
Modernization of the Serbian section
In Serbia, one of the segments, the -long section Belgrade-Stara Pazova is currently being reconstructed by China Communications Construction Company together with China Railways International, with the investment of $350.1 million, funded with a loan from the Export-Import Bank of China. The section Stara Pazova-Novi Sad is being reconstructed by the Russian RZD International, financed with Russian credit. The reconstruction of the section Novi Sad-Subotica is set to begin in 2019, with estimated cost of €943 million, built by CCCC and a duration of 33 months, during which this section will be closed.
Criticism
In Hungary, the project is criticized for its unclear economic viability, debt to China, the fact that this is the most expensive infrastructure investment in the country's recent history, the proposed trajectory, and possible corruption. While the Hungarian government classified its analysis for the economic viability of the project for 10 years, estimates in the non-government-owned media estimate the return around 130 to 2400 years based on the current and expected traffic on the line. The track avoids all major Hungarian cities after Budapest, while an alternative route via Kecskemét and Szeged would benefit a ten-times bigger population. Only two consortia bid for the work. The winning consortium was announced June 2019. As with most public works since 2015 the government linked Hungarian entrepreneur, Lőrinc Mészáros won, with his company “RM International Zrt”, alongside with two Chinese companies: China Tiejiuju Engineering & Construction LLC., and Railway Electrification Engineering Group LLC. The port of Piraeus is still 4 to 8 days away by train from Belgrade, the 4 hours of saved travel time on the leg to Budapest are negligible. COSCO can already transport everything, so this new railway can't really help them.
