With determination of the railway track life cycle, time period of expected operation in satisfying the traffic needs for passenger and freight transport is also defined. During this period it is necessary to ensure expert maintenance activities. But what if expected life cycle is reached, but for some reason (usually budget constrains) it is not possible to start a new life cycle? More than 50% of railway network in Republic of Croatia is out of maintenance cycle. It means that average life cycle of track superstructure is overdue and it is no longer possible to ensure safe and reliable traffic within expected performances with regular maintenance activities which were anticipated during definition of the life cycle. In most cases infrastructure manager doesn’t have a choice than to continue and adapt current maintenance activities and ensure safe and reliable railway traffic within constrains of approved budget. How to keep maintaining such track and which costs will be generated depends on conditions of track components and track geometry. Paper will address the issues of track maintenance for eastern part of lowland railway track R202 Varaždin – Dalj 130 km in length with superstructure 35 to 54 years old. This part of track is characterized with uniform track geometry and relatively small traffic demand and its superstructure can be divided in four characteristic types: joint track with wooden sleepers, continuously welded track (CWT) with wooden sleepers, CWT with concrete sleepers and direct elastic fastening (type ZEL) and CWT with concrete sleepers and non-elastic fastening (type K). Some proposals of adjusted maintenance of deteriorated track at the end of its life cycle will be presented.

track; additional maintenance; renewal; extended life cycle