74.7 million USD needed to upgrade weak railway bridges

Illustrative image (Photo: VNA)

Hanoi (VNA) - The Vietnam Railways Corporation (VNR) has asked the Ministry of Transport to allocate about 1.7 trillion VND (over 74.7 million USD) for the reparation and upgrade of weak railway bridges in the 2022 – 2023 period, and separate rail and road traffic on all road-rail bridges.

According to VNR, there are three road-rail bridges nationwide namely Luc Nam, Long Dai and Pho Lu, and 428 weak and expired railway bridges, or those that do not conform to standards.

In particular, on the north – south railway there are 87 bridges showing signs of danger. Many of those were built before 1975, with some dating back to 1936 and even 1910. Most of those have a small load capacity of between only 10-13 tonnes.

The proposed budget will be used for repairing and replacing 87 dangerous bridges, and for building works to separate road and railway traffic on the three remaining road-railway bridges, the VNR said.

The corporation has also suggested allocating capital in the period to construct overpasses at nine level-crossings between roads and railways, handle the risk of falling rocks in order to ensure safety at 14 other locations, and upgrade and repair 13 tunnels along the Hanoi - Ho Chi Minh City rail route./.