Reconstruction of old rail bridge in Belgrade and its turning into footbridge to begin in next two months – New park to be established on New Belgrade side

In the next two months, the reconstruction of the former rail bridge, which will be turned into a pedestrian bridge, with lookouts and rests, will begin, Serbian finance minister Sinisa Mali announced on social networks. He reminded that the bridge, although it had lost its initial purpose with the moving of the rail traffic, would be kept, revitalized and transformed into a pedestrian connection between the two coasts of the Sava.

– On the Belgrade side, the bridge will be accessed through the new park, and the plan is for it to be a part of the future promenade connecting New Belgrade with Vojvode Misica Blvd and farther, with Topcider. In addition to the footpath, the bridge will have numerous features, among which are rests and lookouts from which there will be a view to the river, the panorama of the old part of the city and New Belgrade – pointed out Mali.

Let us remind that the old rail bridge officially closed to rail traffic on July 1, 2018, as the Main Rail Station in Belgrade, which had been in operation since the summer of 1884, had also fully closed to traffic, making the bridge obsolete. On the same day, the traffic was fully moved to the new rail bridge and the unfinished Prokop station.

Before the closing, trains ran at only 9 kilometers per hour on the old rail bridge, which could be seen on the displays of Stadler’s Regio trains, the most modern ones to use the bridge.

Since the removal of the traffic, but even before, it has been known that the bridge would not be moved, but repurposed within the Belgrade Waterfront. However, in the past ten years or so, there have been speculations about what it will be used for. The idea of turning it into a pedestrian and cycling bridge is the one that has been mentioned the most, but at one point, the idea of turning it into a tram bridge was considered as well, provided that the statics tests proved that it was feasible, but this went no further than those announcements made by the city.

Since the time the first renders of its future look were presented, those renders have changed quite a bit. The first ones showed laterally built-in cafes and small shops, but that was changed (probably because it was realized that its scale did not realistically allow for it, note by eKapija), following which the renders, still current, started showing a footbridge with greenery and lookouts. However, these renders too have been criticized by engineers and traffic experts, who have, on several occasions, pointed out that the current renders of the bridge with the new features are not realistic, because the bridge is not in fact wide enough for all that.

It is also interesting to add that, whenever there has been talk about the fate of the bridge, its height above the Sava water level has never been considered, even though it can be seen with the naked eye that it is lower than other bridges in Belgrade. Its columns have not been taken into consideration either, that is, precisely the thing used as an argument for the necessity of the demolition of the existing Old Sava Bridge.

The old rail bridge is the first non-temporary bridge in the central part of Belgrade. In its initial form, it was built in 1884, ahead of the opening of the Main Rail Station. It had been demolished and rebuilt several times, and the last time it was rebuilt was after the Second World War. During the occupation, it was supposed to get a twin bridge on the Sava, but the Nazi forces didn’t get to finish the second bridge. Parts of the structure whose construction started back then can still be seen on the coast of the Sava. The chronicles concerning this bridge say, among other things, that it has never been painted, because the planners forgot to calculate in the weight of the paint.

It was the only rail bridge on the Belgrade coasts of the Sava until 1979, when the new rail bridge was built.

D. Aleksic

Ministarstvo finansija Republike Srbije

Ministry of Finance of Serbia

Siniša Mali

Main Rail Station Belgrade

Old Sava Bridge Belgrade

Prokop

old rail bridge in Belgrade

reconstruction of old rail bridge in Belgrade

new rail bridge Belgrade