SERBIA’s president Aleksandar Vučić travelled in the inaugural train on October 3 to mark the commissioning of the rebuilt Novi Sad - Subotica line for 200km/h operation, which forms part of the Belgrade - Budapest main line.
China Civil Engineering and China Railway 11th Bureau were jointly awarded a contract in 2021 to reconstruct the 108km line from Novi Sad via Subotica to Kelebija over the border in Hungary and work started in 2022.
The project involved the reconstruction and modernisation of the junctions at Novi Sad, Vrbas and Subotica, the elevation of the railway at intersections with roads and pedestrian and cycle paths to eliminate level crossings, electrification, track doubling throughout and the installation of ERTMS.
More than 120 new structures have been built including four bridges and two viaducts with a total length of 2330m, five tunnels, 15 underpasses, and 27 overpasses. For the first time in Serbia, three so-called eco-ducts have been constructed, each 46m long, which will allow animals to safely cross the railway.
The Chinese contractors say that this is the first project in Europe to use Chinese railway technology independently developed and certified according to the European Union Technical Specifications for Interoperability (TSI).
Only 35km of the old 183km Belgrade - Novi Sad - Subotica line was double track and the average speed on the line was just 45km/h resulting in a journey time of 4h 35min. Following reconstruction of the line for 200km/h operation, the Novi Sad - Subotica journey time has been cut to 42 minutes, and the trip from Belgrade to Subotica now takes 1h 20min.
The southern section of the line, from Novi Sad to Belgrade has already been rebuilt. “In the three and a half years since it was put into regular passenger rail traffic, around 12.5 million passengers have travelled on the section of the high-speed railway between Belgrade and Novi Sad,” Serbian Railways Infrastructure (IŽS) says.
Future projects
“We need to start negotiations on the construction of a railway line from Belgrade to Niš and we are also negotiating with our Chinese friends about the Valjevo - Vrbnica route to Montenegro," Vučić said. He emphasised the importance of building the entire network, not just individual lines. He also said there is no need for all these lines to be high-speed as some of them will be for regional services.
“We are now working to secure money for the construction and reconstruction of the railways between Pančevo, Opovo, Zreljanin and Kikinda, as well as Subotica and Sombor and the connection with Vrbas,” Vučić said.
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