Railway from Belgrade to North Macedonia to be Built Without Long Planned New Section to Velika Plana – Tracks Across Mladenovac to Double

The future railway from Belgrade to North Macedonia, all things considered, will not entail the construction of a whole new route to Velika Plana, as was initially announced. Instead, tracks across Mladenovac will be doubled, the Ministry of Construction, Transport and Infrastructure confirmed for eKapija.

– The technical study envisages the use of the existing rail route and the majority of the stations would be kept at the current locations – they say for our portal and add that the tracks across Mladenovac will be doubled.

Recently, it was announced that the construction of the railway had been supported by the European Union with EUR 700 million, and Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said that “Serbia has accepted variety 4”.

Variety 4, the ministry says, envisages several options regarding the maximum allowed speed of the trains.

– Variety 4 envisages the realization of train speeds of up to 200 km/h on the railway from Belgrade to Nis, excluding the parts of the railway for which it has been estimated that an increase in the projected speed would lead to a considerable increase in the investment, mostly due to local limitations (urban rail stations zones), and most stations would be kept at the existing locations – they point out.

Two years ago, a memorandum was signed with the Chinese company CRBC, which envisaged an increase of the capacities on the sections of the Belgrade-Nis-Presevo-North Macedonian state border railway.

– The memorandum of understanding for the projects of reconstruction of sections on Corridor X defined the need for an analysis on a technical and commercial level. The estimated value of the investment for the Belgrade-Nis section is around USD 2.2 billion, and for the Nis-Presevo-North Macedonian state border, around USD 2.1 billion – the ministry says.

As the Ministry of Construction, Transport and Infrastructure told our portal in July 2019, CRBC was also hired for the preparation of the cost estimate for the construction of a new two-track railway Resnik-Klenje-Mali Pozarevac-Mala Krsna-Velika Plana.

Ivana Milovanovic