The projects have got a two-year completion period

Alpine, FCC’s Austrian subsidiary, has signed two contracts, which together add up to a total of 85 million euro, to modernise Bosnian railway lines. The contracts will be performed in a consortium with another firm.

At issue in the contracts are the 99-kilometre-long line between Sarajevo and Ploce and a 65-kilometre-long section of the line between Kostajnica and Josavka. The projects, which consist in replacing the lines’ rail and ballast in order to boost the maximum running speed of the trains and thus improve transport and connections along these corridors, have a two-year completion period.

The work on the Sarajevo-Ploce line amounts to 51.1 million euro. Forty-five percent of this budget will be financed by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) and 55% by the European Investment Bank (EIB). The work to modernise this route features a great deal of technical complexity, due to the large number of tunnels and bridges on the line.

The contract for the Kostajnica-Josavka line involves the renovation of the 65-kilometre-long Banja Luka-Doboj section for 33.9 million euro. In this case, 45% of the sum will be coming from the EBRD and the remaining 55% from the EIB.