Kraków railway bridge: a titanic and Luxembourgish construction

The project

Started in 2017, work on the E-30 railway corridor includes the total reconstruction of a railway bridge over Poland's largest river - the Vistula - in the centre of Kraków.

Initially, a simple partial renovation was planned with the addition of two additional bridges on either side of the existing deck, but after technical and financial analyses, it was decided to construct a complete set of three new bridges. In 2020, the City of Kraków and the investor, PKP PLK S.A., agreed to extend the scope of works by installing a cycle and pedestrian path on the outer deck, leading to a change in the design and an increase in the width of the bridge.

HISTAR® for extraordinary constructions

ArcelorMittal and its beam finishing centre (BFC-LPL) based in Niederkorn, Luxembourg supplied 1300 tonnes of HISTAR® 460 and was commissioned to carry out the cutting, bending, and chamfering of the beams for the preparation of the welds on the bridge site. With a total length of 229 metres, the largest reinforced concrete slab covers 1200 m3, and its pouring took twenty hours continuously. A unique feature of the solution included the use of HD 400 sections (in various sizes) in HISTAR® 460 for the arch elements on which the entire bridge is suspended. The use of heavy-duty HD profiles in this unique project significantly reduced the volume of material required and accelerated the on-site assembly process.

Today, this bridge is the longest and thinnest railway bridge of its kind ever built in Europe. After the first side of the bridge was put into service in May 2020, the second double-track bridge (the most central) opened in June 2022. It was in May 2023 that the third bridge was opened for rail traffic.

Text:
ArcelorMittal Luxembourg
Constructalia

Images:
© ArcelorMittal Europe