Most na Maloj Rijeci / Mala Rijeka Viaduct Traditional Cache

Once the highest railway bridge in the world, the Mala Rijeka Viaduct located some 20 km north of Podgorica is still the pride of Montenegro and remains the highest railway bridge in Europe.

MALA RIJEKA VIADUCT

The construction was started in 1969 and was completed in 1973. The viaduct is 498.8 metres long and at its highest the trains run 198 metres above the river Mala Rijeka (meaning literally Little river). The bridge is a continuous girder over five spans 81.2 + 92.8 + 150.8 + 92.8 + 81.2 m with one railway track. The distance between the main girder axis is 6.5 m and the distance between the upper and bottom boom axis is 12.0 m. The last bridge span has a straight line extension, the railway being to a curve.

36 000 m³ of concrete and 100 000 tons of steel were built into the bridge. The canyon slopes are of calcareous material with fissures in the deeper zones of the rock mass. The foundations of bridge are massive and contain 8 000 m3 concrete each. The largest of four pillars, upon which the bridge lies, has a base bigger than a tennis court. The piers were made with sliding forms and tower crane inside the piers, and it was moved vertically upwards according to the stages of work. The casting of foundations was done with stable concrete pumps with corresponding pipelines, while the casting of piers was done by concrete pumps with pipelines and a cable crane of 12 tons load capacity.

In 1973 when constructed it was the highest railway bridge in the world surpassing the record height previously held by the Fades viaduct in France. It held the record until 2001 when the 275 metres high Beipan River Shuibai Railway Bridge opened in China. Multiple railway bridges under construction in China will also be higher. By the year 2020 China will have at least 10 more railway spans that are higher. But the Mala Rijeka can still claim to being the second highest truss bridge in the world after the Glade Creek bridge carrying interstate highway in West Virginia, U.S.A.

RECORDS

• highest railway bridge span in Europe
• highest railway bridge span of truss type in world
• highest railway bridge pier in world (height of 139 metres)

CACHE

Enjoy the view and sounds of this master piece of railway engineering and don't forget to wait for the passage of next train. The experience from the train observation struggling through numerous tunnels culminated by pass of the bridge is breathtaking !!

BELGRADE - BAR RAILWAY

The Belgrade–Bar railway is a 476 km long standard gauge railway renowned as one of the most scenic lines in Europe and worldwide. Of this length, 301 km of the railway goes through Serbia, and 175 km  through Montenegro. 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. The railway is electrified along the entire corridor (25 kV, 50 Hz AC). It passes through 254 tunnels of total length of 114.4 km and over 435 bridges (total length is 14.6 km). The longest tunnels are "Sozina" 6.17 km and "Zlatibor" 6.14 km. The highest point of the railway is at 1032 m AMSL, at the town of Kolašin. The railway descends to 40m AMSL at Podgorica in a relatively short distance, thus the gradient of 25 ‰ on this section.

The construction works were concluded on 27 November 1975, by joining the railway tracks south of Kolašin. The railway was opened on 28. May 1976. Electrification was completed at the end of 1977. When built, it took a train approximately seven hours to complete the trip from Belgrade to Bar. Today it takes 11 hours, due to speed restrictions, as the railway cannot safely sustain the projected speeds without being thoroughly rebuilt. Maintenance of the Belgrade–Bar railway suffered from chronic underfunding during the 1990s, which has resulted in the railway deteriorating and becoming unsafe. This culminated in the Bioče derailment, approximately 6km far from the railway bridge in Podgorica direction.

BIOČE DERAILMENT

The Bioče derailment was a train crash on January 23, 2006 in Montenegro. The derailment occurred shortly after 16:00 local time (15:00 GMT) about 10 km north of the Montenegrin capital, Podgorica. A local class 412 train carrying around 300 people from Bijelo Polje in the north of Montenegro to the Adriatic Sea port of Bar derailed above a 100 m-deep ravine above the Morača river, into which it fell. At least 45 people, including five children, were killed and another 184 injured. It was the worst train disaster in Montenegrin history. The accident was caused by a failure in the braking system. As a result, efforts are being made to thoroughly reconstruct the railway.

Listing version: 1.0 (25.09.2016) - html
1.1 (05.05.2018) - spoiler picture added

Source of information