Italy’s Webuild and Swiss joint-venture partner Implenia have started boring one of the longest sections of the 64km Brenner Base Tunnel, set to carry a railway between Italy and Austria under the Alps.
Lot H41, from Gola del Sill, near Innsbruck, to Pfons, both in Austria, includes 22.5km of parallel tunnels, with 38 cross passages.
It also involves the creation of an underground emergency stop at Innsbruck, access tunnels, exploratory tunnels and parts of other secondary tunnels. A bridge over the Brennero A13 highway will also be built.
BBT SE, the public limited company created to deliver the project, awarded the €651m package to the joint venture in November 2018.
When complete, the Brenner Base Tunnel will be the world’s longest railway tunnel and part of the Scandinavian-Mediterranean Corridor of the Trans-European Transport Network (TEN-T).
Austrian Federal Minister Leonore Gewessler and Pat Cox, European coordinator for the TEN-T corridor, attended the ground-breaking ceremony, Webuild said on 12 July.
The Gola del Sill-Pfons lot will create up to 400 direct jobs and more than 1,000 for third parties, the company said.
