Summary sheet
The project aims at developing a new marshalling yard at the crossing point of two TEN-T corridors, in north-west Slovakia (a marshalling yard is a railroad yard at a freight station, used to separate railroad cars on to one of several tracks). The new marshalling yard will concentrate all of the marshalling operations from the existing yards in the area, in particular the railway station Žilina, the marshalling yard Žilina, the railway station Vrútky and the freight station Vrútky. The project will be constructed at the site of one of the existing marshalling yards.
The strategic objectives of the project are: • to ensure competitiveness of rail freight transport against other transport modes through providing effective and efficient services in train formation and marshalling operations, • to meet the parameters set by international agreements to ensure interoperability requirements, • meet technical standards which apply to marshalling yards to improve the safety of labour force involved in marshalling operations. • vacating the existing marshalling yard in the city centre of Zilina in order to make space for line geometry modification to increase track speed and to decrease the unfavourable impacts resulting from rail operation on the urban population of Žilina and Vrútky.
The environmental approval had been obtained previously in May 2007 and the final building permit for the construction was issued in October 2008. The Feasibility Study was completed with comments from JASPERS also in 2008 and the tender design was concluded in January 2009. After the tendering procedure, a contract was awarded in May 2009 and construction works started in July 2009.
The Promoter, ŽSR is subject to and follows EU Directives on procurement procedures (in this particular case, Directive 2004/17/EC), including publication in the Official Journal of the European Union (OJEU), that have been transposed into national legislation. All contracts over the relevant EC directive thresholds have been put out to international tendering, with publication of notices in the OJEU. As usual, the Bank will include a clause to this effect in the finance contract. The contracts for the implementation of the works and engineering tasks have been tendered and awarded through open public procedures, in compliance with EU Directives, that led to the selection of the most economically advantageous offer. Under these circumstances, the procurement procedures followed by the Promoter are suitable for the project and acceptable to the Bank.