Brenner Base Tunnel | €1bn rail contract awarded to link Northern Italy with Alps tunnel

Webuild Group has won the €1.07bn (£920M) contract to design and build a section of a high-capacity railway extending from the Brenner Base Tunnel for 22.5km between Fortezza and Ponte Gardena on the Italian side of the Alps.

The Brenner Base Tunnel, which is still under construction, will be the longest railway tunnel in the world at 64km under the Alps and will connect Verona, Italy, and Munich, Germany via Innsbruck, Austria.

The project is forecast to lead to the creation of 15,000 jobs, both directly and indirectly, as well as along the entire supply chain and across the local economy.

The project includes underground interconnections and other works at Ponte Gardena. It will also improve the Munich-Verona line by adopting standards that exceed the speed and performance limits of the existing line, which currently obliges trains to travel at relatively slower speeds, especially on inclines.

Webuild is already working on three major construction sites for the Brenner. The sites include Mules 2-3, the main section at the Italian end of the tunnel; Tulfes-Pfons that includes underground civil works; and the underground crossing of the Isarco River, near the southern exit of the Brenner before the Fortezza station.

Earlier this year, construction of the new rail tunnels through the Alps set a new record for the project with significant advances made on the Italian side of the Brenner Base Tunnel (BBT) project by contracting joint venture BTC, formed by Astaldi, Ghella and Cogeis.

The record – 860m of tunnel bored and lined in one month – was set in March on the Mules 2-3 section.

Source https://www.newcivilengineer.com/latest/brenner-base-tunnel-e1bn-rail-contract-awarded-to-link-northern-italy-with-alps-tunnel-10-06-2021/

Department of Civil Engineering https://www.ibu.edu.ba/department-of-civil-engineering/