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Tunnelling

 

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Gotthard and Ceneri base tunnels on target

1 August 2013 | By Renzo Simoni, CEO, AlpTransit Gotthard Ltd

Work on the Gotthard and Ceneri base tunnels is on course. In the Gotthard Base Tunnel between Erstfeld and Sedrun, the ballastless railway track has been laid in both tubes. In total, 45% of the railway infrastructure systems have been installed. A pilot operation between Faido and the south portal…

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CROSSING BORDERS: The Fehmarnbelt Fixed Link

23 May 2013 | By Johnny Restrup-Sørensen, Contract Director – Railway, Femern A/S

The Fehmarnbelt Tunnel will connect Denmark and Germany with a two-track railway and a four-lane motorway underneath the Fehmarnbelt. With a total length of approximately 18km, it will be the world’s longest immersed tunnel for combined rail and road traffic and will help bring people, businesses and culture in the…

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Brenner Base Tunnel construction continues as expected

19 September 2012 | By Konrad Bergmeister, CEO, Brenner Basistunnel BBT SE

Construction of the 64km-long Brenner Base Tunnel is in full swing. Two sections of the exploratory tunnel are completed, the access tunnel in Mules now connects the exploratory tunnel with the surface, and two more logistic tunnels are ready for use. The Brenner Base Tunnel (BBT) is a straight, flat…

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Swiss rail construction projects on track – in cities, through the Alps and across borders

1 August 2012 | By Philippe Gauderon, Head of SBB Infrastructure and Raffael Hirt, Communications Manager for the Zurich Cross-City Link, SBB Infrastructure

Throughout 2012, SBB Infrastructure is undertaking a number of construction projects across Switzerland: in the two largest Swiss cities, Zurich and Geneva, in the St. Gallen and Schaffhausen conurbations, in the canton of Ticino, in the Alps, and even beyond Switzerland’s borders. This article presents an overview of the major…

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Gotthard railway systems now being installed and the Ceneri is on course

1 August 2012 | By Renzo Simoni, CEO, AlpTransit Gotthard Ltd

Since the second final breakthrough on 23 March 2011, fitting-out of the Gotthard Base Tunnel has made rapid progress, and since September 2011, installation of the railway systems has been taking place from the north. Elsewhere in the Ceneri Base Tunnel, work has begun on the main drives from the…

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2012: the most exciting year yet for Crossrail

11 April 2012 | By Andy Mitchell, Crossrail Programme Director

2012 is going to be the most exciting year yet for the £14.8 billion Crossrail project with construction moving up a few gears as we enter our tunnelling phase. The year has started with great expectations and excitement for the project not just within Crossrail but also amongst Londoners who…

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Driving under the Gotthard complete and the Ceneri is on course

4 August 2011 | By Renzo Simoni, CEO, AlpTransit Gotthard Ltd

On 23 March 2011, between Faido and Sedrun in Switzerland, miners excavated the last metres of rock of the Gotthard Base Tunnel. Both single-track tubes are therefore now continuously bored over their full length of 57 kilometres. In the Ceneri Base tunnel, the main drives from the Sigirino intermediate heading,…

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Tunnelling for and into the future of European railways

17 September 2010 | By Prof. Dr.-Ing. Alfred Haack, Past President of ITA – International Tunnelling and Underground Space Association and former Executive Board Member of STUVA – Research Association for Underground Transportation Facilities

The remarkable volume of tunnelling on a worldwide basis during the last two or three decades (see Figure 1) is not defined by the demands to improve the railway networks in many countries. Stimulation in this direction is especially given by the generally highly ranked socio-political requirement of improved mobility…

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Gotthard and Ceneri take major steps forward

4 August 2010 | By Renzo Simoni, CEO, AlpTransit Gotthard Ltd

Construction of the new Gotthard line with the Gotthard and Ceneri Base Tunnels is on course. In October 2010, a further milestone will be the final breakthrough of the Gotthard: the miners will excavate the last stretch of rock between the portals at Erstfeld and Bodio/Pollegio. On the Ceneri, in…

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Construction of cross-city link helps relieve capacity limits

4 August 2010 | By Marco Ceriani, Line Section Manager for the Weinberg Tunnel, SBB Infrastructure

Zurich Hauptbahnhof (Zurich main station, or Zurich HB) is the central hub for rail traffic in Switzerland. Trains pull in and out of the station virtually every minute, and over 300,000 passengers depart, arrive or change trains here daily. Commuter traffic is forecast to grow in the coming years, and…

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Infrabel feverishly continues working on Liefkenshoek rail link

28 January 2010 | By Luc Vansteenkiste, Director General of Access to the Network, Infrabel

Infrabel, the Belgian railway infrastructure manager, is busy working on building a direct rail link between the Left and the Right Bank in the Port of Antwerp: the Liefkenshoek rail link. In mid-January 2010, the project company LOCORAIL NV started boring the first of two tunnel shafts. In a conversation…