The Rail Baltica joint venture has announced the second stage in the procurement of the design and design supervision services for the section Vangaži–Salaspils–Misa in Latvia and Tallinn–Rapla in Estonia.
Six international consortiums including design and engineering companies from the Baltics and other European countries have qualified for the second stage of procurement for the Latvian section and ten – for the Estonian section. The scope of this procurement includes preparation of the master design for construction of the railway track substructure, superstructure, related civil structures as well as development of the value engineering studies, spatial planning solutions, detailed technical design and author supervision.
“Both railway sections include a high number infrastructure objects some of which are with high degree of complexity such as the bridge over the river Daugava and viaduct over Tallinn-Rapla highway. Therefore, we are pleased to see that the applicants have vast experience in engineering for large infrastructure projects with similar challenges and the scope,” says Mart Nielsen, Chief Technical Officer of RB Rail AS.
According to the preliminary design, the section Vangaži–Salaspils–Misa in Latvia will be 67 km long with 33 viaducts and overpasses as well as connection to the Rail Baltica Intermodal Logistics Centre in Salaspils and the planned infrastructure maintenance point in Vangaži. In addition, the line contains 11 bridges, including one of the most notable structures in Latvia – approximately 1.3 km long bridge across the Daugava river.
Likewise, the length of the railway section Tallinn–Rapla in Estonia will reach 48 km with planned 24 viaducts and overpasses and 4 ecoducts.
The deadline of the proposals submission for the both sections has been changed to 28 February 2019 for Estonia and to 5 March for Latvia.
By now 7 out of 11 procurements of the detailed technical designs have been launched, covering 57% of the entire Rail Baltica line. For Estonia, the detailed technical design procurements are underway for the entire line from Latvia/Estonia border to Tallinn. In Latvia, two out of four designs have been launched around Riga (Central section) and the same for Lithuania – two sections out of four, spanning from Kaunas to Lithuania/Latvia border.