New PRG for Trieste Campo Marzio

Getting into the swing of the upgrading and efficiency project

Having completed the preparatory stages with the activation of the new fuchsia-coloured ET electrical zone, we are now preparing, in Trieste Campo Marzio, to kick off the mighty project to upgrade the RFI station deputed to connect the port of Trieste with the rest of Europe through the Ten-T Corridors.

Included among the works financed by the Pnrr and entrusted to the temporary consortium composed of GCF (group leader), Se.Ge.Co. and Alstom, the project includes the executive design and construction of the new PRG and ACC of Trieste Campo Marzio, as well as the construction of two new technological buildings and the electric traction, light and motive power and telecommunications facilities.

In fact, a radical plan of upgrading and re-functionalization of the infrastructure apt to elevate the efficiency of the railway node by adapting it to current traffic patterns and operational speed in the sorting of goods. An intervention that, understandably, will have to be implemented by minimizing interference with the flow of goods arriving to and departing from the Port of Trieste - over 62 million tons of goods handled per year (Assoporti 2018 data) - which is inextricably linked to the efficiency of the railway infrastructure if we consider that, as proudly pointed out by the president of the Eastern Adriatic Sea Port System Authority, "over 50% of containers and 41% of trailers to or from the port travel by rail, even exceeding the thresholds of the objectives set by the European Union". Indeed, with its 9,304 trains maneuvered in 2021 (up 15.13% from the previous pandemic year) and more than 11,000 maneuvered in 2022, Trieste confirms the upward trend and emerges as Italy's leading rail port.

“In fact, the complexity of the intervention - explains Paolo Lopez, project engineer at GCF, "consists essentially in the need to implement full-bodied interventions, aimed at maximum traffic efficiency, making the least operational impact and the smallest possible backlash on the ordinary current activity, preserving it from the shockwave of severe disruptions. For this reason, during the preparation of the executive project, a strict subdivision of the interventions was foreseen, for upgrading the old facility into six macro phases divided, each, into punctual micro operations and a granular stream of small smart-worksites”.

The preliminary operations carried out in recent weeks aimed at enabling "working under the wheels" by minimizing the impact of the works on freight traffic, including a further sectioning of the station's electrical zones in order to achieve the new fuchsia-coloured ET electrical zone that will be fed through the new 3kV dc manual-operated disconnector no.56, in derivation from the RED electrical zone 1. "Certainly a minor operation," stresses Engineer Lopez - but not insignificant: obtaining more electrically independent zones will allow us, for this purpose, to reduce the areas that will have to be subjected to interruption in order to carry out the planned interventions and, therefore, to keep the infrastructure as efficient as possible during the works”.
Now, starting in February, the six executive phases of the works will get into full swing, which will provide for track, electric traction, signalling, buildings, and the re-functionalization of the entire infrastructure.