📋 Tender Overview
As part of the works carried out on one of the largest infrastructure railway projects in Croatia Reconstruction of the existing and construction of the second track of the railway line on the section Krievci Koprivnica state border began the pushing of the new Drava Bridge one of the most demanding new facilities on this section. The bridge is located east of Botovo near the state border with Hungary. The method of longitudinal suppression by which the Drava Bridge is pushed from one side of the coast to the other has not yet been applied in the construction of railway facilities in Croatia. The new bridge is of steel lattice construction and is located next to the old bridge that was built 61 years ago. Unlike the old single-track bridge the new bridge will have two tracks and will be 300 meters long and 10 meters in height and width.Assembling the bridge structure by welding sandblasting and painting the bridge are carried out on the bank while in the riverbed at a depth of about thirty meters 134 reinforced concrete piles are buried on which two columns and two abutments are built over which the new bridge will stretch.Pushing the bridge to the first pillar will take about a week when a third of its length 100 meters will be pushed. After that the construction of the rest of the bridge continues on the shore. At the end of the year the entire bridge is expected to be pushed to the other side of the coast. After that work on the installation of the two tracks should begin. On average 20 meters of the bridge is crammed per day.Darko Barii Member of the Management Board of H Infrastruktura said that this is a strategically important project for the Republic of Croatia and the entire economy because its main role is to increase the permeability of the railway line located on the most important railway corridor in Croatia. The RH2 corridor connects the port of Rijeka with the Republic of Hungary and the largest part i.e. 80 of the freight transport volume goes through this corridor.This is one of the most demanding projects were working on. A total of 550 workers work on it and about 50 of them were hired on the Drava Bridge. They have done excellently and are well accustomed to the environment and people said Mehmet Yilmaz project manager on behalf of the contractor.The method of pushing the bridge was explained by the head of the supervisory team Branimir Bosanac The entire bridge is moved by pushing with hydraulic pushers. In doing so the bridge construction slides over the Teflon plates located on the bearings.The existing old Drava Bridge is designed for a single-track railway and is not sufficiently load-bearing to withstand new traffic loads. As a result it will be replaced by a new double-track bridge.To protect themselves and the structure from rain wind sun and low temperatures the workers erected a large tent inside which they normally perform all the work. It is also in the function of protecting the environment from the spread of paint and harmful gases because it filters the air and comes out clean into nature. The tent is not fixed but moves on the tracks and when the work on one segment of the bridge is completed it is pushed forward and the workers continue to work on the new part of the bridge.Steel elements are lifted to the desired position by a crane that can lift twice 25 tons and if necessary cranes are also used.In total about 6 thousand m3 of concrete was spent for foundations retaining walls columns and abutments about 700 tons of reinforcement and 4 thousand tons of steel for the bridge construction itself. The parts of the metal structure from which the bridge is assembled were manufactured in Turkey and were brought to the site with 184 trucks.In order to protect the existing road and the backwater of the River Drava in which there is a fish hatchery a retaining wall was also built. The pillars are elliptical in shape in the riverbed due to their alignment with the watercourse of the Drava River.The project Reconstruction of the existing and construction of the second track of the railway line on the section Krievci Koprivnica state border is worth 350 million euros excluding VAT which are co-financed from the Connecting Europe Facility CEF and is included in the list of strategic projects of the Republic of Croatia. The value of the bridge is 23.6 million euros.The contractor for the project is the Turkish company Cengiz Insaat and work is currently being carried out along the entire 42.6km stretch.As part of the project the reconstruction and construction of new stations and stops bridges galleries viaducts road overpasses underpasses underpasses and parallel roads are envisaged. Works are also carried out on the contact network and other power plants signalling and safety and traffic-control and telecommunications systems.Upon completion of the project trains will be able to run up to 160 kmh with a limit of up to 150 kmh in Lepavina and 100 kmh in Koprivnica because in these areas these are urban areas with specific restrictions.The expected end of work on the project is in 2025. So far about 40 of the work has been done.
