Transylvania rail contract

A €246 million contract to refurbish and upgrade the Sighişoara-Atel section of the Simeria-Braşov railway line in Transylvania, north of Bucharest, has been awarded by Romania's National Railway Company (RFC) to a consortium of FCC's construction division together with subsidiary Alpine, and construction company Azvi.

The project consists of the refurbishment and modernisation of 28km of double-tracked electrified line. As a result, passenger trains will be able to travel at up to 160kph, and freight trains at up to 120kph.

This section of railway is part of Pan-European Transport Corridor IV and the contract is 85% financed by the European Union. The corridor route is Nuremberg/Dresden-Prague-Bratislava-Budapest-Arad-Bucharest-Constanta.

The project will take 36 months, and includes four bypasses of almost 9km, and remodelling two passenger stations and two unstaffed stations. An arched viaduct with a 125m-span will be built and there will be two tunnels measuring 1.37km in total.

Additionally, the contract includes a complete overhaul of the electrification system and railway signalling in accordance with European standards, as well as work on existing stations on the line.

FCC and Azvi are both based in Spain, while Austria's Alpine Construction Company is a part of the FCC group.