Belgrade–Bar railway

Belgrad–Bar Railway

Legend from Pančevo 0,0 Belgrade to Zagreb Belgrade-Resnik to Niš and Kragujevac Belgrade-Barajevo Stepojevac to Obrenovac Vreoci Lazarevac Slovac Valjevo Leskovice Ražana Kosjeric Požega to Kraljevo Užice Mačkat Branešci Zlatibor-Tunnel, 6170 m Zlatibor 205,5 Border Serbia/Bosnia and Herzegovina Jablanica Štrpci 214,8 Border Serbia/Bosnia and Herzegovina Uvac Rača Priboj Bistrica Lim Prijepolje Prijepolje Freight Vrbnica 301 Border Serbia/Montenegro Bijelo Polje Mojkovac-Tunnel (3243 m) Mojkovac Kolašin Mateševo (Highest point 1032 m) Ostrovica-Tunnel (3827 m) Trebesica Trebesica-Tunnel (5122 m) Lutovo Mala Rijeka Viaduct (498 m) Bioče from Nikšić Podgorica to Shkodra Morača Virpazar Sozina-Tunnel (6170 m) Sutomore 476 Bar

The Belgrade–Bar railway (Serbian: Пруга Београд-Бар or Pruga Beograd-Bar) is a railway connecting the Serbian capital of Belgrade with the town of Bar, a major seaport in Montenegro.

Overview

Mala Rijeka Viaduct

The Belgrade–Bar railway is a standard gauge railway, 476 km long. Of this length, 301 km of the railway goes through Serbia, and 175 km through Montenegro. It is electrified along the entire corridor (25 kV, 50 Hz AC). It passes through 254 tunnels of total length of 114,435 m and over 435 bridges (total length 14,593 m). The longest tunnels are "Sozina" (6.17 km) and "Zlatibor" (6.17 km). The biggest and the best known bridge is Mala Rijeka viaduct, 498 m long and 198 m above ground level.

The highest point of the railway is at 1,032 m (3,386 ft) AMSL, at town of Kolašin. The railway descends to 40 m AMSL at Podgorica in a relatively short distance, thus the gradient of 25‰ on this section.

A small 9 km section of the railway actually passes through Bosnia and Herzegovina, near the town of Štrpci, but the trains do not stop there.

When built, it took a train approximately 7 hours to go from Belgrade and Bar, while now it usually takes over 10 hours, due to speed restrictions, as the railway cannot safely sustain the projected speeds prior to thorough reconstruction.

History

The decision to build the railway connection between Belgrade and Bar was made in 1966, as a national project of SFRY. However, the construction was passed to SR Serbia and SR Montenegro to build on their own.

The sections of the railway were completed as follows:

• Resnik - Vreoci in 1958
• Podgorica - Bar in 1959
• Vreoci - Valjevo in 1968
• Valjevo - Užice in 1972
• Užice - Podgorica in 1976

The construction works were concluded on 27th November 1975, by joining the railway tracks south of Kolašin.

Maintenance of the Belgrade–Bar railway has suffered from chronic underfunding in 1990s, resulting in the railway deteriorating and becoming unsafe. This culminated in the Bioče derailment, when a passenger train derailed, causing the deaths of 47 passengers. Efforts are being made to thoroughly reconstruct the railway.

The Serbian part of the railway was targeted several times by NATO during its bombing campaign in 1999, seriously damaging portions of the railway. Also the small section that passes through Bosnia and Herzegovina was blown up by SFOR ground forces. All of this damage was repaired after the war.

See also

• Serbian Railways
• Railways of Montenegro