The EU’s Cohesion Fund is financing the modernisation of a 141 km double-track section of a railway crossing Romania, from the Hungarian border at Curtici to Constanța on the Black Sea. The section – in the west of the country – runs from km 614 of the line to the town of Simeria. Upgrades and curvature adjustments will increase the top speed to 160 km/h, with an average speed for longer-distance trains of close to that.
- 09 May 2018
The project will raise the maximum load per axle for freight trains from 20 to 22.5 tonnes in order to comply with interoperability specifications for Europe’s railways. New sidings totalling 65.9 km in length are being laid at stations along the line to facilitate train movement.
Four station buildings for passengers are undergoing renovation and nine are under construction. This includes civil engineering works and installation of heating, lighting, and sanitary and commercial areas.
Platform reconstruction
A total of 66 platforms and their canopies at all 13 stations and 11 stops along the line are being rebuilt to meet accessibility requirements and interoperability specifications in terms of length, width and height, while a pedestrian tunnel and 19 overpasses are being built from scratch. Work on bridges involves the building of 24 over watercourses and three over drainage channels, repairs to 37 and demolition of one.
In addition, the project entails the repair of a culvert and the installation of a further 105, as well as work on three tunnels of 1.8 km in total length, 20 road overpasses and underpasses, and retaining walls of an overall length of 13.28 km. Embankments are being stabilised and riverbeds adjusted along 13.66 km of track, while 61 level crossings are being eliminated, with overpasses and underpasses built as required. The remaining 22 crossings are to be fully automated with traffic lights, barriers and sirens.
Overhead lines 348.3 km in length are to be renewed and European Railway Traffic Management System level 2 signalling infrastructure, including GSM technology, is to be installed along the entire line. Renewal of voice and data communication and passenger information equipment, and two fibre optic transmission lines, is also taking place.
Key transport links
This is one of eight sections of the railway that are being or have been modernised thanks to EU funds. Those between Curtici and km 614, and Simeria and Sighișoara also benefited from Cohesion Fund support, while funding from the Connecting Europe Facility has been earmarked for upgrades to the Sighișoara-Brașov and Brașov-Predeal sections.
The section between Predeal and Câmpina was modernised with financing under the Instrument for Structural Policies for Pre-Accession (ISPA) and work on the Câmpina-Bucharest stretch was backed by the European Investment Bank. Rehabilitation of the Bucharest-Constanța part of the line was funded by a combination of ISPA and the Cohesion Fund.
The upgrades will complete an important component of the core Trans-European Transport network, with the railway forming part of the network’s Orient/East-Med and Rhine-Danube corridors. The former runs from the North Sea to Burgas in Bulgaria and the latter from Strasbourg to Constanța. Both are strategically vital for freight and passenger transport. As a result of the improvements, handling of transit traffic in Romania will be greatly improved, while journey times between Bucharest and Budapest will be cut by as much as an hour on some services.
Total investment and EU funding
Total investment for the project “Rehabilitation of rail line National Border – Curtici – Simeria to 160 kilometres per hour Section II km 614 to Gurasada and Section III Gurasada to Simeria” is EUR 2 070 901 278, with the EU’s Cohesion Fund contributing EUR 1 306 130 096 through the “Large Infrastructure” Operational Programme for the 2014-2020 programming period.