By rosebell
In order to advancing the Lot 1A (Battipaglia-Romagnano) of the Salerno-Reggio Calabria high-speed rail line, the first of four TBMs for this project has arrived in the Port of Salerno.
Excavation of 3km of the Saginara tunnel, that is located between Campagna and Contursi Terme, will be up to this TBM, that was delivered for the Xenia consortium comprising Webuild, Ghella, Tunnel Pro and Pizzarotti and its reassembl will take two to three months.
With 130m length, 4,000 tonnes weight and 13.46m-diameter, this machine is equipped with 18 motors generating a total of 10MW of power and is the largest TBM ever to be used by Webuild in Europe.
The scheduled date for arrival of three further TBMs is over the next few months.
Considering that Webuild has a new facility in Terni, which specialises in remanufacturing TBMs and other machinery, Webuild has reconditioned one of the TBMs after it was used on the Grand Paris Express in the French capital.
The process of designing and constructing of 35km of new railway between the towns of Battipaglia and Romagnano is a content of Lot 1A of the Salerno-Reggio Calabria high-speed rail line project, whereas it also includes the construction of 20 tunnels, eight to be dug using four TBMs, and 19 viaducts, in addition to a planned junction in Romagnano to allow the new line to interconnect with the existing line, which runs from Battipaglia towards Metaponto and Potenza.
By operation of the high-speed line trains will be allowed to travel at speeds up to 300km per hour.
