📋 Tender Overview
The railway administration plans to start the reconstruction of the bridge near Cervena nad Vltavou this year. These days it has announced a tender for a contractor. The existing steel structure from 1889 no longer meets the requirements for speed and load capacity so it will be replaced by a new reinforced concrete arch bridge with a span of 156 meters. The start of work is planned for November this year completion in June 2024. The total cost amounts to 470 million crowns.Operation over the highest railway bridge of the former Czech-Moravian Transversal Railway began in November 1889. It has never been reconstructed since. It transfers the single-track railway line Tabor - Psek through todays Orlk reservoir and it is the only bridge over the Vltava to the railway between Ceske Budejovice and Prague. From the strategic point of view the line is of great importance as a bypass route especially during exclusion works on backbone lines and for extraordinary transports. Today the speed on the bridge is limited to 30 km h its carrying capacity practically excludes the operation of freight trains. The existing bridge structure has five openings with a total length of 280.2 m. It consists of a stone arch structure in the first and fifth bridge openings and a steel lattice structure in the second to fourth openings. The height of the bridge from the bottom of the Vltava to the level of the tracks is 69.5 m. In the main bridge opening a load-bearing structure made of a reinforced concrete arch with a span of 156 m and a span of 34.7 m is designed. Thanks to its span the bridge will be one of the largest arch bridge works in the Czech Republic. The length of the bridge will reach 296.8 m the total length of the bridge 316.3 m.From the point of view of railway transport it will be a single-track bridge with a continuous rail bed in a displaced position approximately 10 m north of the existing bridge. Its construction will be divided into four stages. First the abutments pillars and foundations of the base of the arch and the supporting structures of the outermost fields will be built. In the second stage an arched supporting structure will be built in particular. During the next phase the bridge structure will be completed and the line will be moved to a new position as part of the main railway closure. At the same time the existing steel structure of the bridge will be dismantled while the use of a new supporting structure for loading the dismantled parts is assumed. This procedure will make it possible to minimize exclusion activity. In the last stage finishing work and reclamation of the construction area will take place.
