Russian Railways has put into commercial operation the new 158.2-metre-long railway bridge across Kola River on the Kola–Vyhodnoy rail section in Murmansk region, that has collapsed in June due to the floods.
The design and survey work for the construction of the new railway bridge began immediately after the collapse of the old structure, which had been closed for train traffic, due to the flooding of the Kola River on June 1 of this year.
The bridge was inaugurated by a freight train.
The opening ceremony was attended by Oleg Belozerov, the CEO of RZD, Vladimir Tokarev the Deputy Minister of Transport and Andrey Chibis, the Governor of Murmansk region.
The bridge was constructed within 3 months, showing “the high level of skills of builders. The bridge is unique not only from an engineering point of view: there are no intermediate supports in the river-bed, which is good for the environment; there are no obstacles to fish migration,” Olgeg Belozerov said.
The design and survey work for the construction of the new railway bridge began immediately after the collapse of the old structure, which had been closed for train traffic, due to the flooding of the Kola River on June 1 of this year.
The new railway bridge across Kola River was built in 105 days. Unlike the old one, it does not have supports directly in the river-bed as they are all on the coast. This eliminates the influence of flood waters on the bridge. In addition, it has a positive effect on the environment as now the riverbed is unobstructed and the supports no longer interfere with fish migration.
The bridge consists of three superstructures of which the central one has a length of 111.2 metres and the other two have 18.2 metres. The superstructures stand on four reinforced concrete coastal supports on the foundations of 34 bored piles.
The bridge will feature an innovative monitoring system to warn about possible malfunctions in the structure in real time and forcibly stop traffic at the approaches to the bridge if the sensors detect any security threat. The signal will go to the railway dispatch center and automatically turn on an alarm, stopping trains from crossing the bridge. This is the first system of its kind to be installed on a railway bridge in Russia.
Share on:
