HŽ Infrastruktura has officially put into commercial service on December 2, the 2.5 km double track bridge across the River Drava, that provides connection from Novo Drnje station to the Hungarian border.
The bridge is 300 metre-long, 10 metres high and wide and weighs 4,000 tonnes, that it was assembled on the bank and pushed to the other side of the Drava River using the longitudinal pushing method, which was applied for the first time in the Republic of Croatia.
The new track ends at the state border with Hungary, where it continues onto the existing infrastructure of the Hungarian State Railways. The 15 km section was recently put into operation, while this time the focus was on the completion of the new bridge.
The opening ceremony held in Podravina was attended by the State Secretary at the Ministry of the Sea, Transport and Infrastructure, Žarko Tušek, the President of the Management Board of HŽ Infrastruktura, Ivan Kršić, representatives of the contractors and the supervision of the works, Cengiz Insaat, who also visited the newly built Novo Drnje railway station.
“For passengers, the new double track bridge means that both Koprivnica and Zagreb cities will be less than an hour away. I don’t think we need to say what this will mean for the quality of life of Podravina region, the frequency of passenger trains but also for the rail freight transport,” the State Secretary Tušek said.
“For the first time, you are witnessing trains running on it. There will mostly be freight trains running from and to the port of Rijeka. That is the point of this project – to increase the throughput capacity of the Mediterranean Corridor so that as much cargo as possible can pass from Rijeka to Hungary and its further destinations,” the President of HŽ Infrastruktura said.
The new bridge is replacing the existing single-track old bridge along the line that does not have sufficient load capacity for the increased traffic loads and train speeds. The Drava Steel Bridge was one of the most demanding structures to build alongside the Carevdar and Komari viaducts as part of the entire project.
“The most challenging works were for the riverbed, where it was necessary to build the bridge pillars. In order to protect the existing road and the river arm a retaining wall was also built. The pillars in the riverbed are elliptical in shape to align with the watercourse,” said Mehmet Yilmaz, a representative of Cengiz Insaat company.
It is expected that more than 30 trains per day will cross the new double track bridge, a significant increase compared to the initial traffic when only six trains per day could use the bridge, explained Mario Rašić, project manager at HŽ Infrastruktura.
Of the total 42.6 km Križevci – state border line, 38 km of new track has been built, with 4 km of new track from Mučna Reka to Koprivnica will have to be laid. In addition to the construction of the new track, the reconstruction of the existing track is being carried out, and about 10 km has been reconstructed so far. The project is currently 75% complete, and the plan is to complete the work by the end of 2025, when trains will be able to travel at speeds of up to 160 km/h.
The new track, as well as the new bridge, were built as part of the project “Reconstruction of the existing and construction of a second track on the Križevci – Koprivnica – state border section”.
EUR 350 million is the total value of the project which is co-financed by the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF). Under the 2015 CEF Transport calls for proposals, HŽ Infrastruktura signed the EUR 283.9 million grant agreement in October 2016, of which EUR 241.3 million or 85% is co-financed from the CEF. The remaining amount of EUR 42.6 million representing 15% of the cost, is secured from the state budget. The EU fund supported the uprade of the existing track and construction of a second track on the Križevci – Koprivnica – state border railway line section.
In March 2020, the Croatian rail infrastructure manager and Cengiz Insaat signed a EUR 320.9 million construction contract, while a EUR 5.3 million contract has been also signed with a consortium consisting of Centar za organizaciju građenja and DB Engineering & Consulting for supervision of works. The project also included the reconstruction of two stations and four stops, the construction of Novo Drnje new station and Peteranec stop conversion of the existing station Mučna Reka into a stop.
Seven bridges and three viaducts have been also constructed and works also included construction and reconstruction of the overhead contact line and other power systems and installation of signalling and interlocking, control-command and telecommunications system.
This project was Croatia’s priority rail project which is an integral part of the railway corridor for international traffic state border – Botovo – Dugo Selo on the Rijeka – Zagreb – Budapest line part of the Mediterranean Corridor.
The project and it is part of a global project covering the modernisation of the Zagreb – Hungarian state border railway line which will have a positive impact on traffic management, modal split, congestion, interoperability, service quality, safety and security, and on environment by shifting traffic from road to rail.
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