Russia: The renovation of the Podgornoe railway in the Podgorensky District of Voronezh Region has now been completed at a total cost of Euro14.8m. Eurocement contributed Euro8.92m to the joint venture project, which was carried out with JSC Russian Railways.

"This is an excellent joint project between big businesses," said the governor of the Voronezh Region, Alexei Gordeev. "Eurocement and JSC Russian Railways were able to reach an agreement on joint investments in the station's renovation, which made it possible to substantially increase its cargo throughput. It was very fortunate for us that one of the largest cement plants was opened in the Podgorensky District of the Voronezh Region. Productivity tripled in the last year alone and all this is thanks to the efforts of the cement plant. Now the railroad is ready to meet the cargo transportation needs of the enterprise." According to the president of Eurocement, Mikhail Skorokhod, the station's renovation will support the shipping of up to 2Mt/yr of cement from Eurocement's plant.

As part of the renovation, existing routes were extended and underwent major repairs, which allows trains of increased length (up to 71 cars) to be used, overhead contact lines were repaired and upgraded and the system underwent a transition to the Ebilock-950 centralised microprocessor, which is designed to control switches and signals at the station. In total, 2.6km of track and 36 turnouts were laid, 13km of overhead contact lines and carrier wires were replaced, 245 new supports were installed and the station area was renovated.