Orient/East-Med Corridor: North Macedonia - Bulgaria CVIII Rail Interconnection, Beljakovce - Kriva Palanka Section

The current project is a second section of the Eastern Rail Corridor VIII Section and it comprises of construction of a 34 km rail line between Beljakovce to Kriva Palanka. It is part of the “missing link” of around 89 km of rail on Corridor VIII towards Bulgaria. This project is located on the extension of the trans-European transport network (TEN-T) to the Western Balkans, namely Corridor VIII, which was included in the new TEN-T maps, adopted by the European Commission on February 4th, 2016.

The Eastern part towards Bulgaria is divided into three sections (according to the geographic conditions), as follows:

• Kumanovo – Beljakovce with a length of 30.8 km,
• Beljakovce - Kriva Palanka with a length of 34 km and
• Kriva Palanka – Deve Bair, the border with Bulgaria, with a length of 24 km.

The section Beljakvce-Kriva Palanka follows the valley of the Kriva River and is located at the hillside, 30-50m above the river level. It envisages a mixed traffic route, i.e. passenger and freight. The section includes two stations for passenger and freight use and three halts. A traction power substation in the area of Kratovo station is also included.

The overall objective of the Project is to contribute to the completion of the Railway Corridor VIII-Eastern Section (Kumanovo – Beljakovce – Kriva Palanka – MK/BG Border) and to establish operational connectivity along Rail Corridor VIII between North Macedonia and Bulgaria.

Specific objectives for this section are as follows:

• Construction of the 34 km railway track;
• Reducing regional travel time between Kumanovo and Kriva Palanka by rail to approximately 35 minutes against the current travel time of approximately 50 minutes by road;
• Increasing the transport volume of freight and passengers against the road;
• Protection of the air and environment from pollution.