Planning for the high speed rail connection between Prague and Dresden has been complicated by the decision by the Czech Rail Authority (SSŽ) to cancel its contract with the consortium that was preparing the project’s feasibility study. Cedop/Egis Rail signed a contract back in March 2017 to carry out the study and claims to be 95 percent completed, but SSZ says the consortium violated the terms of its agreement on several occasions. “The supplier repeatedly failed to fulfill its duties according to the terms of the contract, especially concerning contractual deadlines and the contracted range of work,” said SSZ’s spokesman. As recently as January, however, SSZ was celebrating the completion of the first stage of the study and announced that the next portion of the study would be ready in June. Idnes.cz reports that the route chosen for the new line runs through the town of Ústí nad Labem, although this was not the expected solution. Petr Šlegr of Cedop confirmed that the study had fallen behind schedule but blamed this on instructions from the Ministry of Transportation to cease work on it for six months. He said there should still be room for negotiations that would allow his company to complete the work.
