Nov 1 2010
ÖBB Infrastruktur AG and Austrian construction group STRABAG signed the contract for the construction of the Koralm Tunnel.
A consortium under STRABAG’s technical and commercial leadership will begin work in early 2011 in order to complete construction on the main section by late 2018. With a value of € 570 million, it is the largest construction contract ever awarded in Austria.
“We are currently finishing work on the Gotthard Base Tunnel in Switzerland. It is wonderful that we now have the opportunity to again deploy our decades of expertise in tunnelling in our home country of Austria,” says Hans Peter Haselsteiner, CEO of STRABAG SE.
The Koralm Tunnel is the main section of the new Koralm railway link to be built between Graz and Klagenfurt and represents an important section of the Baltic-Adriatic axis of TEN Corridor No. 23 between Gdañsk, Warsaw, Vienna and Bologna. Upon completion, the Koralm Tunnel will be 32.5 km long, making it the longest railway tunnel in Austria and one of the longest in the world.
STRABAG, working together with Jäger Bau GmbH, will construct two parallel, single-track bores with a length of 20 km each using two tunnel boring machines with a diameter of 9.9 m. The 8.5 million tonnes of excavated material will be used to produce 1.0 million m³ of concrete for the inner lining of the tunnel. The work represents a particular technical challenge as the only access possibility to the underground construction site is through a 60 m access shaft near Deutschlandsberg in southern Styria.
Source: http://www.strabag.com/