Ukraine's Minister of Infrastructure Volodymyr Omelyan says the Beskydy railway tunnel in the Carpathians will open until the end of 2017.
"Beskydy Tunnel, you all know it. During its construction, 12 Ukrainian governments have changed, and two revolutions took place. The Beskydy Tunnel will open this year," the minister said at the Ukrainian Infrastructure Forum on Thursday, 20 April.
"Infrastructure projects take long time, but they are for long," the minister stressed.
The current single-track Beskydy Tunnel is critical railway route to Europe. It was built back in 1886 and has exhausted its operational resource. The new tunnel, which is being built nearby, will wave two tracks and allow trains to pass it at a 60-70 km/h speed.
The active phase of the tunnel's construction has been underway since November 2013. The works are planned to be completed by the fourth quarter of 2017.
Earlier, it was planned that traffic through the new tunnel will be launched in the second quarter of 2018.