An Italian team of Pizzarotti and Webuild say excavation at the first tunnel for the Messina-to-Catania Railway, at Forza D’Agrò, has been completed.
Tunnel boring machine “Alessia,” pictured, excavated 2.5km of eastbound tunnel. A 3.8km section of the Letojanni tunnel and the 9km-long Sciglio segment are still to be undertaken for Italian state company Rete Ferroviaria Italiana.
Webuild said the TBMs it’s using for the railway can adapt to varying soil conditions and use “beam scan” technology for continuous geotechnical monitoring.
The full 42.2km-long construction section stretches from Fiumefreddo in Catania to Giampilieri in Messina, running inland from the historic coastal railway.
The section will have six twin-bore tunnels, two single-bore tunnels and seven viaducts.
Webuild is working on six lots on the Palermo – Catania – Messina line upgrade, which will reduce travel time by an hour between Catania and Palermo and half an hour between Messina and Catania.
It will form part of the Scandinavian-Mediterranean Corridor of the EU’s TEN-T network, which will connect Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Germany, Austria and Italy, ending in Malta.
- Subscribe to our newsletter here to receive construction news and insights from around the world straight to your inbox
Further Reading:
