Serbia Plans Procurement of 56 Machines for Rail Track Maintenance – “Existing Machinery 40 Years Old and Can’t Service New Fast Railroads”

The Ministry of Construction, Transport and Infrastructure has published the tender for the selection of a technical advisor for the preparation of the implementation plan and technical specifications for the procurement of heavy rail machines within the 2nd phase of the project of the modernization of the rail sector of Serbia.

The tender says that, for the first phase of said project, which is financed by the World Bank and the French Development Agency, a loan of EUR 102 million was approved for Serbia, and that the preparation of the second phase of this project, within which heavy rail vehicles for rail maintenance will be procured, is in progress.

It is pointed out that, to maintain speed at the designed level on the newly modernized lines as well as maintain/increase the speed on existing rail lines that are planned for later reconstruction, it is necessary to carry out regular maintenance & renewal cycles, but the Serbian Railway Infrastructure’s (IZS’) existing maintenance machinery and equipment cannot meet highly demanding European norms and standards related to railway infrastructure maintenance.

– Currently, IZS has a fleet of railway infrastructure maintenance machinery that is, on average, 40 years old with outdated technology that does not meet current needs. The technical condition of most machinery, and therefore the reliability of their operation, is low. Also, its reliability is affected because, in recent years, low amount of funds has been allocated for machinery maintenance – the text of the tender says and adds that it is therefore necessary to develop an implementation plan with cost estimates and technical specifications for the rail heavy-duty maintenance machinery.

Among other things, it is said that the problem lies in machines for lining and leveling of tracks, which are important because of the speed, and traffic safety, and because they directly affect the geometry of the tracks.

The plan is to procure 56 rail maintenance machines, in five lots, of which the first one entails 6 heavy duty track maintenance machines (said lining and leveling machines), whereas the other lots consist of 19 wagons, 11 construction machines, 21 motor cars with upgrade and one intervention machine.

The tender is open until January 31, and more details can be found HERE.

Let us remind that Serbian Railways Infrastructure announced that it had reduced the train speed from 200 to 160 km/h for preventive reasons on January 10 on two locations on the Belgrade-Novi Sad fast railroad.

Previously, the Party of Freedom and Justice said that it had been done due to the “bad geometry of the track” and that “the decision was made because the engine drivers have reported the clanging and the vibrating of the trains on said sections, noting that traffic at the projected speeds was not safe”, Beta reported.

The president of Serbia, Aleksandar Vucic, who visited the site of the works on the Novi Sad-Subotica fast railroad on Saturday and talked about raising the penalties for the stealing of rail components, then responded by saying that “yesterday, the speed on the route from Belgrade to Novi Sad was lowered without a reason in order to preserve people’s safety”.

B. P.

Ministarstvo građevinarstva, saobraćaja i infrastrukture Republike Srbije

Infrastruktura Železnice Srbije Beograd

Svetska Banka-WB Beograd

Ministry of Construction Transport and Infrastructure

Serbian Railways Infrastructure

World Bank

French Development Agency

heavy rail machines

rail maintenance machines

procurement of machinery for rail maintenance

project of modernization of Serbian railway

loan

track leveling machines

track geometry