By rosebell
Following that TBM Ida, working on the H41 Sill Gorge-Pfons construction lot, completed a 8.4km drive to reach her destination in the town of Navis, the Brenner Base Tunnel project has recorded the first breakthrough of a main tunnel tube in Austria.
Being commissioned in June 2023 from Ahrental, near Innsbruck, this 10.4m-diameter, 160m-long TBM travelled south to build the western main tunnel tube, that included three complex geological fault zones: the Viggartal and Walzn, and the approximately 35m-wide Werner zone, which was successfully negotiated at the beginning of this year.
According to BBT SE board members Martin Gradnitzer and Gilberto Cardola: “After the last Italian TBM arrived at the border at the Brenner Pass in May, TBM Ida’s breakthrough marked another key project success on the Austrian side.”
Naming of Ida was up to children from the Navis Elementary School, and in July they decorated one of the final tunnel segments produced at the factory in Ahrental.
The scheduled date for TBM Lilia to break through on the eastern main tunnel tube is the autumn to complete all mechanised excavation on Lot 41.
