Dutch rail infrastructure manager ProRail starts work this month on its section of the vital international Betuweroute rail freight route linking The Netherlands and Germany, and part of the strategic Rotterdam-Genoa freight corridor.

Work to add a third rail to the line focuses on a three-kilometre section of track from Zevenaar to the German border. The groundwork will see 30,000 cubic meters of sand laid over the next few months, before construction of the track begins in 2018.

Vital

ProRail is also renewing a footbridge at Kloosterpad, as well as revamping an underpass Kwartiersdijk and a viaduct at the Beekseweg (N812 road). The project will involve around 2,000 metres of noise-protection screening, 9,000 metres of rail, 10,000 railway sleepers and 17 kilometres of catenary (overhead) wires.

The German section of the project involves the construction of around 73 kilometres of new track between Emmerich and Oberhausen, and that is ongoing. ProRail says the new section of track will be ready by December 2018. More information about the project is available online.