ARGE H53 BBT, a consortium of Porr and Marti, will use TBM Olga to build the East Tunnel towards Innsbruck on the Pfons-Brenner section of the railway. TBM Wilma will dig the West Tunnel.
The 10.37m-diameter Herrenknecht machines, which are the last of nine TBMs to be deployed for the Brenner Base Tunnel (BBT), will each drive around 7.5km towards Innsbruck.
Towards the south, drill and blast tunnelling using the NATM method will be used.
Lot H53 Pfons-Brenner is the largest in the BBT’s Austrian project area.
The concrete segments for H53, manufactured by the Max Bögl group, began arriving on site in June.
At the TBM launch ceremony last week, BBT SE CEOs Martin Gradnitzer and Gilberto Cardola: “No fewer than seven tunnelling machines have dug their way through this mountain and today we are proud to celebrate the start-up of the last two. A big thank you and a hearty ‘Glück auf’ goes not only to the BBT SE team, but also to the workers who labour on our construction sites day after day.”
Bolzano province governor Arno Kompatscher said the launch brought closer the goal of a direct and faster connection between Austria and Italy.
“The Brenner Base Tunnel will bring us closer together within the Euregio and also revolutionise local public transport. This project shows once again that cross-border co-operation in the field of mobility and transport is the only way forward for a sustainable future,” said Kompatscher.
ÖBB Infrastruktur CEO Judith Engel outlined how the BBT was part of a wider investment in the Austrian rail network.
“Today, we are building the infrastructure for the rail transport of tomorrow,” she said. “By the end of 2025, 130km of the new Koralm Railway line – including the 33km of the Koralm Tunnel – will be in operation. We expect the Semmering Base Tunnel to go into operation in 2030. The Brenner Base Tunnel, the centrepiece of the Brenner railway axis, will complete our transalpine rail transport service at the beginning of 2032.”
