The Belgrade railway junction (, ) is a large-scale reconstruction of the rail network in Belgrade, Serbia. It was launched 1971 with works officially starting 1974 with the construction of the New Railway Bridge. The central part of the scheme is formed by the Belgrade Centre railway station, better known as Prokop after the neighborhood it is located in, which is served via three tunnels beneath the city center.
Construction of the Belgrade railway junction was mostly completed with the opening of the Vukov spomenik underground passenger station in 1995. As the completion of the Prokop railway station was severely delayed due to lack in funding the network, which was planned to replace the old rail network and the historical central station up till today is only used for the BG Voz S-train of the urban modal city network.
During World War II, German occupational administration developed a project of Belgrade railway junction, which never materialized. Very detailed and specific plans are kept in the Belgrade Railway Museum.
Concept
The main feature of the railway scheme is that all railway installations cross the town center underground and do not collide with the urban infrastructure. Three tunnels adding in length have been constructed. They connect the central railway station at Prokop with the main rail links to the west, north and south of the city.
The Belgrade railway junction is an intermodal project for long distance, suburban and city traffic, including a shunting station with attached tracks a descending ramp, shunting and loading-unloading group of tracks, a locomotive depot, as well as a major passenger station - Belgrade Centre - and technical passenger stations. The suburban traffic within the complex runs in three directions with an underground station at Vukov Spomenik in downtown Belgrade.
Within the scheme the Belgrade railway junction is serving seven main international rail routes with a considerable capacity. Part of the junction are 15 passenger stations, a new marshalling yard serving the international transport Makiš with centralized and automatic management and traffic control and a daily capacity of 600 railway cars. Within the Prokop central station plans to build of business space exist.
By 2018, the system is envisioned to be centered around the Prokop (passenger traffic), Zemun (freight traffic) and Makiš (marshaling yard) stations.
Construction history 1970s-2000s
Works began in 1974 by building the bridge across the river Sava and the tunnels "Vračar" and "Dedinje".Inženjerska komora Srbije, Glasnik 4 - Zorica Slavković-Marjanović - Od koncepcije do realizacije - duga pruga Prokop - dugogodišnje analize, studije i rad na izboru optimalnog rešenja The bridge, New Railway Bridge, was finished in 1979, while the tunnels were finished in 1993 and 1988, respectively.
The Zemun railway station was built from 1977 to 1981 when was opened, even though it was never fully finished. In the early 1980s, the marshaling yard in Makiš was arranged. In 1982 the double-track railway Zemun-Zemun Polje was finished and part of the passenger-technical Zemun railway station was built. In 1984 double-track railway New Belgrade-Belgrade Centre, across the New Railway Bridge was finished, so as the "Senjak" tunnel, the continuation of the bridge, which connects it with the Prokop station. In 1988 the two single-track railway tubes ("Dedinje" tunnel) were finished, establishing the connection Belgrade Centre-Rakovica-Jajinci. The tunnel is . There were significant problems during the digging under the Humska Street (Partizan Stadium) and the royal palace of Beli Dvor.
Double-track railway Belgrade Centre-Pančevo Bridge, with tunnels "Vračar" and "Stadion", was finished in 1993. The "Vračar" tunnel is long. From the Pančevo Bridge an additional double-track tunnel, "Karaburma", long, was also built but it was never in use. That same year, the double-track connecting switch railway "Karađorđev Park" and switch "Dedinje", with railway stations Karađorđev Park and Pančevo Bridge, were also completed. On 7 July 1995, the underground station Vukov Spomenik was opened. As of 2018, most of the stations lack the station buildings or access roads.
Other larger facilities built include: tunnels: "Bežanijska Kosa", "Karaburma", "Kneževac", "Kijevo 1", "Kijevo 2" and "Kijevo 3"; stations: Tošin Bunar railway station; bridges and overpasses: Bridge on the circular road in Rakovica, overpass across the Novi Sad highway and three-forked overpass across the highway at Maleško Brdo-Autokomanda;
In the complex on the part of passenger and goods transport system, by 2018 the following was built in total: 15 single-track tunnels (), three tunnels for two tracks (), and one multi-track tunnel long; 36 reinforced concrete prestressed railway bridges of the total length and road area of and seven carriageway brides long and road area of ; 12 steel single-track bridges of the total length and six bridges for two tracks of total length .Energoprojekt, References Infrastructure Vračar
Estimated funds for the completion of the junction are 250 million US$, which should be provided from foreign investment and loans. Final date of completion was set for 2010, but nothing has been done by that deadline.
2010s
Gradual moving of trains from the Main station to the new, Prokop station began in the early 2016. In December 2017, all but two national trains were dislocated to "Belgrade Center".РТС: "Прокоп од данас главна железничка станица" Problems arose immediately. The Prokop is still not finished, has no station building and a proper access road and public transportation connections with the rest of the city. Additionally, it has no facilities for loading and unloading cars from the auto trains nor was ever planned to have one. Still, in January 2018 it was announced that the station will be completely closed for traffic on 1 July 2018, even though none of the projects needed for a complete removal of the railway traffic are finished. The Prokop is incomplete, a projected main freight station in Zemun is not being adapted at all while there is even no project on a Belgrade railway beltway.
A series of temporary solutions will have to be applied. One is the defunct and deteriorated Topčider station, which will be revitalized and adapted for auto trains. It has one major flaw, a bad public transportation connection (only one tram line, No. 3), so the railway company asked officially for this problem to be solved. It was announced that the official deadline for the construction of the station building in Prokop is 2 years, however there are no funds for it. A second part of the Kuwaiti loan (€50 million) is still not approved and the needed public procurements will be finished by the end of 2018. Freight station in Zemun will be located between the existing stations Zemun and Zemun Polje, on the area of . Revitalization of the existing of tracks and of buildings will be followed by the construction of the of new tracks and additional of edifices. Deadline is also 2 years, but the works will start at the end of 2018. This means that the planned Belgrade railway junction won't be finished before 2021, at best. However, minister for transportation, Zorana Mihajlović, in December 2017 gave conflicting deadlines. She said that the station building in Prokop will be built from April 2018 to April 2019 and that freight station Zemun should be finished by the end of 2018. In October 2018 a deadline for finishing the Zemun station was extended to early 2022.
The question of the beltway remains. There is still no project for it, and it is needed especially for the hazardous materials which are now transported right through the city. It was announced that after the Main station is closed, these trains will use the much wider bypass route, Pančevo-Orlovat-Novi Sad railway, which is itself under reconstruction in January 2018. As a permanent solution, a track Beli Potok-Vinča-Pančevo will be built, but the project includes the road beltway along the same route and a road-railway bridge across the Danube. It is not known when it will be built, as the projected cost is €0.5 billion. In July 2018 the traffic around Kalemegdan was discontinued. As the beltway around the city is not set as a priority, city architect Milutin Folić in July 2018 stated that freight trains will use the routes of BG Voz and go through the tunnels below the central urban areas of the city. They will use it during the nights, when BG Voz is not operational.
In 2015, prime minister Aleksandar Vučić announced that the high-speed rail Belgrade-Budapest will be operational by 2018. In 2016 a contract was signed in Riga, Latvia, with Chinese companies China Communications Construction Company and China Railways International for the modernization of the Belgrade-Stara Pazova section. The section is long and the works include leveling of all crossings, uniformization of platforms, renovation of all station along the route, underground passages, formation of the green areas, etc. Station which will be reconstructed or adapted include New Belgrade, Tošin Bunar (which will be relocated a bit), Zemun, Zemun Polje, Batajnica, Nova Pazova and Stara Pazova, while stops at Altina and Kamendin will be added. The reconstruction has three phases: Prokop-Zemun, Zemun-Batajnica and Batajnica-Stara Pazova. Phase I and III will be done first. The freight and passenger tracks will be separated in the Batajnica-Stara Pazova section. Works started in November 2017 and the entire project should be finished in 36 months, by November 2020. When everything is said and done, the train speed in the Belgrade-Batajnica section will be and in Batajnica-Stara Pazova section up to . In October 2019 the deadline was moved to fall of 2021.
On 1 February 2019 the traffic in the northern direction, towards Novi Sad, Subotica, Vienna and Budapest, was completely shut off. The modernization of the tracks was given as a reason, including the construction of the viaduct and tunnel Čortanovci (began on 11 August 2017, deadline 52 months), renovation of the Stara Pazova-Novi Sad section (16 March 2018, deadline 48 months) and the already mentioned Prokop-Stara Pazova section. Renovation of the bypass track for the freight transport to Novi Sad, almost twice longer that the regular one (, via Pančevo, Orlovat and Titel), was completed by January 2019. Also closed are the international lines to Hungary and Austria. Minister Mihajlović said that this is "partially force majeure", and that alternative bus transportation is organized. The traffic will be discontinued at least until 2022, or more than three years.