Rail Baltica updates tender for longest railway bridge construction
A new tender will be announced for the construction of the longest railway bridge of Rail Baltica across the river Neris in Lithuania. Infrastructure manager LTG Infra is clarifying and adjusting the provisions for the complex project after remarks from the earlier tender. The new bridge with an estimated value of 5.8 billion will be part of a new railway between Kaunas and the Lithuanian-Latvian border.
The construction of a railway bridge across the river Neris is a large and complex project. It will be the longest railway bridge not only in Lithuania, but in all of the Baltic States. “The new railway bridge is one of the biggest challenges and the most technically complex engineering structure in Rail Baltica railway construction. It will not have any support in the water”, says LTG Infra General Director Karol Sankovsky.
Infrastructure manager LTG Link started the search for a contractor in December last year, but now has decided to update the contract. “In order to ensure that the terms of purchase of such a complex object are completely clear to all suppliers, it was decided to adjust the provisions of the tender documents. This includes the technical design, worksheet, contract condition, and technical specifications”, says Sankovsky.
Tender conditions
The proposals and remarks on the tender launched in late December, the tender conditions are currently being updated. The procurement requirements are being clarified according to the suppliers’ questions and proposals. The updated documents will be shared with all potential suppliers through a market consultation. After the new feedback has been analysed, a new tender will be announced. The tender itself is scheduled to begin in March or April.
According to Sankovski, this competition, as well as other works of the Rail Baltica project and future tenders, may become an important “pillow” for the Lithuanian economy in the face of Covid-19. The contractor who wins the tender will not only have to build a bridge. Also part of the task is to tidy up the environment, install noise-reducing walls, reconstruct nearby water supply and other engineering networks, and reconstruct drainage structure
New record
The total length of the new bridge will reach 1510 metres. As of yet, the longest bridge in Lithuania is the Lyduvėnai railway bridge with a length of 599 metres. The longest bridge for cars is the bridge over the Nemunas near Jurbarkas, which is 494 metres long. The longest distance of the new bridge between the pillars, at the point where it will cross the river, will be 150 metres.
Rail Baltica is the largest railway infrastructure project in the history of the Baltic States, which will include the construction of an electrified European double gauge railway line from Warsaw via Kaunas and Riga to Tallinn. The total length of the Rail Baltica railway line in the Baltic States is 870 kilometres, of which 392 kilometres in Lituania.
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