Reconstruction of the Reinforced-Concrete Railway Bridge in km 3,668 – Argentinská of the Track Bubeneč – Holešovice in Prague

This article provides a brief review of a reconstruction of the railway bridge in kilometer 3,668 of the railway-track Prague Bubeneč – Prague Holešovice. Specifically, the object is a 10-span reinforced-concrete slab bridge of spans app. 10x 20m carrying two railway-tracks. The reconstruction comprised of a superstructure waterproofing replacement, reconstruction or replacement of cornices and bridge seat at abutment O2 and replacement of all bearings and expansion joints.The bridge’s operation had to be maintained during reconstruction so replacement of bearings and expansion joints was carried out on an uplifted superstructure. Reconstruction of upper part (cornices, waterproofing and expansion joints) was conducted transversally by halves of bridge so operation was maintained at least on one of the railway-tracks.During the process, after consulted with SŽDC, some technical aspects of the original technical documentation from 2008 were changed according to an actual in-situ conditions and contractor demands. These changes involved a design of new cornices and a significant reduction in a number of temporary supports so the structures had to be analyzed for the temporary construction states again. After completing all works on bridge deck and enabling operation of both tracks, the bridge reconstruction continued with reconstruction of the superstructure’s bottom face and existing parts of substructure including building-up of new pile caps.