GERMAN Rail (DB) has completed the more than 56km of tunnelling required for the Stuttgart 21 project.
The milestone was marked with a ceremony on September 14, attended by a number of dignitaries including representatives from DB, federal, state and local government, the European Commission (EC), Stuttgart Airport and construction partners.
The Stuttgart 21 project includes the construction of a new underground main station beneath the historic terminus, which is on course to open in December 2025, along with a complex network of new lines, mostly underground, to connect the new station to lines radiating from Stuttgart.
Tunnelling began on December 4 2013, with eight mostly twin-bore tunnels now completed:
- Bad Cannstatt tunnel
- Feuerbach tunnel
- Airport tunnel
- Filder tunnel
- Obertürkheim tunnel
- the S-Bahn tunnel between Mittnachtstrasse station and Stuttgart main station S-Bahn station
- Rosenstein S-Bahn tunnel, and
- Untertürkheimer Kurve tunnel.
More than 60km of slab track has already been laid in the tunnels. Tunnelling was completed using tunnel boring machines (TBM) and traditional tunnel construction methods, at a rate of up to 1km a month.
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