By rosebell
Thessaloniki’s new metro line, which is 10 km and includes 13 stations and became a large archaeological excavation during construction, has been inaugurated by Webuild in collaboration with Hitachi and Aktor, while its daily capacity for passengers transportation is 315,000.
Benefiting two TBMs the metro tunnels in Greece’s second largest city were built and construction was accompanied by the city’s most extensive archaeological digs to date, spanning an area of 30,000m2.
Considering that during the excavations process treasures of immense historical value, such as numerous marble slabs from the famous Roman road known as the Decumanus Maximus were uncovered, the commitment to preserving the finds caused that, in some cases, station locations were adjusted based on archaeological discoveries.
In order to better accommodating the remains of a Byzantine-era wall uncovered during the digging, the Demokratias station was shifted 10m and the line’s 13 stations have become archaeo stations where many of the artefacts are on display.
