English
The first line of the Skopje City Train has become reality. Today, journalist teams and citizens took a promotional ride from Skopje to Zelenikovo. The first train also carried Prime Minister Hristijan Mickoski, Deputy Prime Minister and Transportation Minister Aleksandar Nikoloski and other Government officials. The comfortable, air-conditioned train was in Zelenikovo in just 20 minutes. This train will run to Skopje and back several times a day.
The conditions in which we crossed the section from Zelenikovo to the center of Skopje are truly European. This does not solve all the problems we have, but this is a step forward in solving some of the problems in transportation and the environment – pollution, considering that the heating season is ahead of us and the challenges that come with it, said Prime Minister Hristijan Mickoski today after arriving in Skopje from the Zelenikovo railway station.
Mickoski was accompanied by the Deputy Prime Minister Nikoloski, who said that the work was implemented fairly quickly.
This is proof that what was considered forgotten and abandoned until two years ago, our railway transport, is coming back to life. If two years ago we had completely abandoned tracks, closed railway stations that were falling apart, non-functional trains and locomotives, today we have clear and active cargo transport, and since yesterday we have the City Train. We promised that it would start on September 1st, and that is what happened. I hope that the City Train will help a lot both to pupils and high school students, and to people who want to get to their jobs and pensioners as well, emphasized Minister Nikoloski.
As previously stated by the director of the PE “MZ Infrastructure” – Sinisa Ivanovski, it takes less than 25 minutes to get from Zelenikovo to Skopje and vice versa. There is a 25-kilometer reconstructed railway network, and several stations were also reconstructed. Trains travel at a speed of 80 kilometers per hour, and sometimes even 100 kilometers per hour. There are also 11 road crossings, and at each station there will be bicycle parking lots.