Excavation of the entire length of the Brenner Base Tunnel’s first railway tunnel tube has been completed.
TBM Wilma’s breakthrough on the H53 Pfons-Brenner construction lot yesterday means the west main tunnel now stretches for 55km – from the Sill Gorge near Innsbruck to Fortezza in Alto Adige.
The 10.37m-diameter Herrenknecht machine bored 7.4km and installed more than 23,000 rings to complete the final section of the west tunnel and reach the border with the neighbouring construction Lot H41 Sill Gorge-Pfons.
Prior to the launch on September 18, 2024, TBM Wilma was delivered to site in 80,000 components transported in 170 shipments.
During the 706-day drive, the TBM encountered geological fault zones, where the characteristics of the rock changed significantly within just a few metres.
The Porr and Mari consortium, which is delivering the H53 lot, says logistics has been a key consideration throughout the project, with an emphasis on efficiency and the environment.
The tunnel segments, each weighing around 10 tonnes, were transported by rail to the construction site via the Wolf rail link.
The excavated material was transported via several kilometres of conveyor belts directly from the tunnel construction site to the nearby Padastertal disposal site.
“In a project of this scale, logistics are at least as important as the machine itself. We wanted to keep road transport to an absolute minimum. This allowed us to make the processes more efficient while also eliminating around 45,000 lorry journeys,” said H53 Pfons-Brenner project manager Michael Knapp.
TBM Olga, the last machine working on the Brenner Base Tunnel, is expected to break through on the east main tube before the end of the year, marking completion of excavation of the main tunnel tubes.
