Light at the end of the tunnel: After many delays, the Rhine Valley Railway tunnel is scheduled to go into operation at the end of 2026, as was last planned.
Rastatt (dpa / lsw) - Five years after the tunnel accident of the Rheintalbahn near Rastatt, the construction project has now come to a quieter course. According to current information from Deutsche Bahn, after years of delay, the tunnel is scheduled to go into operation at the end of 2026, as last planned.
On August 12, 2017, the accident occurred in the tunnel during the construction of the underpass of the existing Rhine Valley Railway. The tracks above sagged and traffic came to a standstill for seven weeks. In order to limit the damage, workers pumped large quantities of concrete over a length of 160 meters into the tube in which the million-dollar tunnel boring machine was still stuck.
To ensure that rail traffic is affected as little as possible, the railway has changed the route. The railway created an important prerequisite for the further construction of the east tube at Easter: the tracks of the Rhine Valley Railway in Rastatt-Niederbühl take a new route. Instead of above the east tube, the trains now run above the finished shell of the west tube. This means that the east tube can be completed in an open construction method - i.e. from above.
From mid-2023, the concreted tunnel boring machine is to be uncovered and dismantled. At the end of 2021, the railway completed the shell of the west tube, and this is planned for the east tube by the end of 2024. After that, the original course of the Rhine Valley Railway is to be restored.
The tunnel is part of the expansion and new construction project for the Rhine Valley Railway, one of the most important north-south axes in the European railway network. The rail connection between North Sea and Mediterranean ports should become significantly faster and more efficient as a result of the project. Passenger traffic and freight transport were badly affected during the lockdown. The overall economic damage is said to run into the billions.
