The circle closes on the main construction site for the excavation of the Turin-Lyon base tunnel. Telt has entrusted works for three billion at the conclusion of the tender called to select the companies that will carry out the excavation on the French side. In the field there are three groups of Swiss, French and Italian nationality, working on three lots to create the 57 kilometers of tunnel, essentially 80% of the entire project. The estimated time for construction reaches 72 months, with the line’s operations expected to postpone by one year, from 2030 to 2031, due to the delays generated by the pandemic.
Economic commitment: EU guarantees 40% of the work
The assignment of the contracts represents, as Hubert du Mesnil, president of Telt points out, “a decisive step in the construction of the base tunnel of the new Turin-Lyon railway line”, a project that “is fully part of the transport promotion objectives. railway, supported by the EU, and which contributes to the policies promoted by the two countries, France and Italy, for the ecological transition and economic recovery ”. Of the 8.6 billion in value, the EU guarantees 40% with the commitment to rise to 50.
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Seven cutters at work in the heart of the mountain
When fully operational, when the process for the excavation work on the Italian side will also be completed within a few months (1 billion), there will be seven milling machines at work in the heart of the mountain, with about six thousand workers in the various sites and a model, defined by the Démarche Grand Chantier, which tries to maximize the impact on the territories by excluding the base camps but focusing on the development of services, from hospitality to catering, for workers.
“Today is a special day” recalled Iveta Radičová, European coordinator of the Mediterranean Corridor of which the Turin-Lyon is part. Radičová recalled the long gestation of the project and underlined how “the criticisms and observations were important to improve the work towards greater sustainability and efficiency”.
For the race at work a team of 70 people
The assignment of the tender, recalls the director of Telt Mario Virano, “comes after months of work, made complex by the pandemic: a team of 70 people worked to carry out the selection procedure and then assignment, dealing with the limitations imposed by Covid ». What are the next steps? First of all, the conclusion of the tender procedure to also entrust the excavation of the 12 kilometers of base tunnel on the Italian side, starting from the Chiomonte site. Then, as Virano recalls, it will be time to focus on the technologies intended for the fitting out of the tunnels – two, one for each direction of travel, which run in parallel but interconnected by 200 bypasses. “In this case – explains the director of Telt – works for 2 billion of great importance because it will be a question of selecting various types of technological solutions, with the most advanced standards, from the railway ones to the electrical power supply system, up to signaling. , safety and sensors, with particular attention to future maintenance activities ».