Switzerland-based Implenia has secured a Sfr145m ($151m) contract from Swiss Federal Railways (SBB) for construction of the new Bözberg railway tunnel.
The project will see a 4m-long corridor being added to the Gotthard route in order to encourage a further shift of transalpine freight transport from road to rail.
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The largest sub-project within this plan is the replacement of the existing Bözberg tunnel in Canton Aargau with a new twin-track tunnel which will allow containers to be transported along the route.
Under the project, installation sites are being set up at both locations and the main drilling work will be carried out by a tunnel boring machine (TBM) starting at the Schinznach-Dorf site.
In order to take away the spoil, a loading station will be established on the Schinznach-Brugg-Wildegg transport route, which will save a total of 56,700 lorry journeys along the roads from and to Wildegg.
Drilling work on the new Bözberg rail tunnel will start at the southern portal near Schinznach-Dorf in mid-2016 and the tunnel is scheduled to become operational in 2020.
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By GlobalDataThe northern portal of the new tunnel is located near Effingen, while the southern one is by Schinznach-Dorf.
Scope of work for Implenia includes the installation of track and some of the electrical equipment, as well as conversion of the existing twin-track tunnel into a rescue and service tunnel.
The old and new tunnels will be connected by five cross-shafts to provide emergency access and this conversion work is expected to take place until 2022.
Image: Drilling work on the new Bözberg rail tunnel will start near Schinznach-Dorf in mid-2016. Photo: courtesy of Implenia.
