The authorities in the Republic of Moldova become every day more aware of the importance of railway transport and focus on projects whose purpose is the promotion of the railway transport for a sustainable development and the increase of infrastructure quality and capacity.
Being a transit country, the infrastructure projects aim at optimising the traffic speed of trains and the execution of the connection with the European infrastructure with standard gauge, these being some of the greatest challenges imposed by the need of an efficient infrastructure. Likewise, the need to rehabilitate and modernise the infrastructure, as well as the elaboration of projects regarding the possibilities of constructing new railway sections which should enable the connection with the European network, is provided in the national strategy and the governmental programme until 2013. For this purpose, “the rehabilitation and electrification of railways and the connection to the European gauge, especially of the Chişinău-Ungheni line” is one of the priority projects in railway infrastructure.
With a 1,157-km network of operational railways, of which only 11 km are lines with European gauge, the remaining 1,146 km being with 1520-mm gauge, the Republic of Moldova plans to modernise the railway infrastructure, the quality of services being considerably increased after the execution of necessary works. Therefore, in order to become an important point of connection between the European Union and the CIS states, the Republic of Moldova is interested to execute the modernisation project of Ungheni-Chişinău line, which provides its electrification and the construction of railway sections with 1435-mm gauge. “We want to become a gate to Europe through Chişinău, and under the circumstances, it is important to develop the railway infrastructure with European gauge and the electrification of Ungheni-Chişinău line”, declared Vitalie Struna, the General Manager of the Railway Company.
Chişinău-Ungheni line is 107.6-km long (1520-mm gauge), being a part of the Pan-European Corridor IX and of the CE-95 international line (according to the multila-
teral agreements of the European Economic Commission of UN on AGC railway lines) which cross the Republic of Moldova. The project on the line rehabilitation and electrification provides the execution of works on the existing infrastructure and of the necessary art works, the elaboration of the project on railway stations and the construction of additional railway sections with 1435-mm gauge in order to facilitate the access to the infrastructure with European gauge. The electrification project aims both at executing line works (including the construction of traction substations, of power lines and of the installations for the contact network), and of the section of the new line with European gauge. Likewise, the authorities will establish the location and the construction of locomotive depots which will be equipped with both types of line. The project is estimated at USD 401-536 Million, the financing sources being the international financing institutions, the private sector, but also the state budget.
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