Belgrade - Bar railway

The Belgrade–Bar railway is a railway connecting the Serbian capital of Belgrade with the town of Bar, the main seaport in Montenegro.

It is a standard gauge railway, 476 km long. Of this length, 301 km of the railway goes through Serbia, and 175 through Montenegro. It is electrified along the entire corridor (25 kV, 50 Hz AC). It passes through 254 tunnels of total length of 114 435 m and over 435 bridges (total length 14 593 m). The longest tunnels are "Sozina" (6.17 km) and "Zlatibor" (6.17 km). The biggest and the best known bridge is Mala Rijeka viaduct, 498 m long and 198 m above ground level.

When built, it took a train approximately 7 hours to go from Belgrade and Bar, while now it usually takes over 10 hours, due to speed restrictions, as the railway cannot safely sustain the projected speeds prior to thorough reconstruction.

The sections of the railway were completed as follows:
* Resnik - Vreoci in 1958
* Podgorica - Bar in 1959
* Vreoci - Valjevo in 1968
* Valjevo - Užice in 1972
* Užice - Podgorica in 1976

Maintenance of the Belgrade–Bar railway has suffered from chronic underfunding in 1990s, resulting in the railway deteriorating and becoming unsafe. This culminated in the Bioče train disaster, when a passenger train derailed, causing the deaths of 47 passengers. Efforts are being made to thoroughly reconstruct this railway.

The Serbian part of the railway was targeted several times by NATO during its bombing campaign in 1999, seriously damaging portions of the railway. Also the small section that passes through Bosnia and Herzegovina was blown up by SFOR ground forces. All these damages were repaired after the war.

ee also

*Serbian Railways
*Railways of Montenegro