Belgrade railway junction

The Belgrade railway junction (Serbian language Београдски железнички чвор, Beogradski železnički čvor) is a large-scale reconstruction of the railroad network in Belgrade, Serbia. It was launched 1971 with works officially starting 1974 with the construction of the New Railroad Bridge. The central part of the scheme is formed by the Prokop railway station which is served via three tunnels beneath the city center.

Construction of the Belgrade railway junction was mostly completed with the opening of the Vukov spomenik underground passenger station 1995. As the completion of the Prokop railway station was severely delayed due to lack in funding the network, which was planned to replace the old railroad network and the historical central station up till today is only used for the BG Voz S-train of the urban modal city network.

The main feature of the railway scheme is that all railway installations cross the town center underground and do not collide with the urban infrastructure. Three tunnels adding 14 km in length have been constructed. They connect the central railway station at Prokop with the main railroads to the west, north and south of the city.

The Belgrade railway junction is an intermodal project for long distance, suburban and city traffic, including a shunting station with attached tracks a descending ramp, shunting and loading-unloading group of tracks, a locomotive depot, as well as a major passenger station - Beograd Centar - and technical passenger stations. The suburban traffic within the complex runs in three directions with an underground station at Vukov spomenik in downtown Belgrade.

Within the scheme the Belgrade railway junction is serving seven main international railroads with a considerable capacity. Part of the junction are 15 passenger stations, a new marshalling yard serving the international transport Makiš with centralized and automatic management and traffic control and a daily capacity of 600 railway cars. Within the Prokop central station plans to build 120,000 sqm of business space exist.

Works began in 1974 by building the bridge across the river Sava and the tunnels Vracar and Dedinje.

Up-to-date expenditures in the Belgrade Junction exceed US $700 million. The major portion of the funds was spent for the freight facilities and the electrification scheme, while a portion was spent for the construction of the passenger facilities.

Estimated funds for the completion of the junction are 250 million US$, which should be provided from foreign investment and loans. Final date of completion is the year 2010.

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Wikipedia