Tunnel Boring - Articles and news items

Manufacture of Crossrail’s tunnel boring machines to get underway shortly

Rail industry news / 16 May 2011 /

Crossrail today announced that six of the tunnel boring machines (TBMs) required to deliver the new rail tunnels will be manufactured by Herrenknecht AG, Germany. (more…)

Gotthard and Ceneri take major steps forward

Issue 4 2010 / 4 August 2010 /

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 March 2010, driving towards the north and south began from the intermediate heading at Sigirino. Both construction projects have therefore taken a major step forward towards their respective scheduled openings in 2017 (Gotthard) and 2019 (Ceneri). (more…)

Construction of cross-city link helps relieve capacity limits

Issue 4 2010 / 4 August 2010 /

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 over half a million passengers and passers-by are expected to be using the station every day – exceeding its current capacity limits.

Together with other infrastructure expansion projects, the new 9.6km cross-city link will soon ease the bottleneck, enabling new service patterns to be implemented for suburban (S-Bahn) rail traffic from the end of 2013 and for long-distance services as of 2015. The improved services and new connections will be of particular benefit to users of Zurich’s local S-Bahn network and to rail passengers travelling on the Geneva–Berne–Zurich Airport–St. Gallen route. (more…)