Italferr to project manage construction of BBT southern section

Italferr has been awarded a €7.7 million project management contract to oversee works on the southern portion of a 55-kilometre railway tunnel between Austria and Italy.

The contract will see the consulting arm of Ferrovie dello Stato (FS), Italy’s state-owned railway company, involved in a programme of preparatory and main works in the construction of the Brenner Base Tunnel (BBT).

The package of works includes building new bridges over the Rio Bianco and Isarco rivers, repositioning of obstructing underground services, the construction of an access route, an underpass beneath the Brenner rail line and roads within the construction site.

Additionally, Italferr will oversee the formation of 4.3 kilometres of main tunnelling works, 2.3 kilometres of interconnections and the realignment of the existing Verona-Brenner line.

The €8.6 billion Brenner Base Tunnel (BBT) will be the second-longest rail tunnel in the world, behind the Gotthard Base Tunnel, once complete in 2025.

Planning first started on the BBT in 1989, but early mentions of a need for a new tunnel along the route can be traced back to a joint study by Germany’s Deutsche Bahn (DB), Austria’s Österreichischen Bundesbahnen (ÖBB) and Italy’s Ferrovie dello Stato (FS) published in 1971.




Continue reading...