Adif - Abrimos caminos

BARCELONA SANTS - LA SAGRERA TUNNEL

This tunnel will connect what are to be Barcelona’s two high-speed stations: Sants and the future La Sagrera station, currently under construction.

The tunnel will also improve all the city’s railway services, as the other tunnels in Barcelona will be freed from the medium to large distance traffic that will now run through the new tunnel, once it is operative.

On 26th July 2011, the Barcino tunnel boring machine completed its drilling work, having tunnelled a distance of almost 5.1 km below Barcelona. This represents one of the most decisive advances towards putting the Barcelona-French Border High-Speed Line into service in 2012.

The tunnel is 5.8 km long, of which almost 5.1 km was drilled by the tunnel boring machine. Drilling work began on 26th March 2010 and lasted exactly 16 months. During this period, there were four scheduled maintenance halts.

This action by Adif has been endorsed by internationally renowned agencies, institutions and technical experts.  The difficulties always faced when building an urban tunnel were added to by the problem of the tunnel’s route running alongside buildings that are important examples of Barcelona’s architectural and cultural heritage: the Sagrada Familia, Casa Milà and Torre del Fang.

In order to increase safety, instead of passing under buildings the route but passes under Mallorca Street, Diagonal Avenue and Provença Street in the central district of Eixample. A comprehensive auscultation and control plan has been applied, as well as complex engineering actions to guarantee safety at all times in construction of the tunnel, and to prevent any structural impact on buildings and terrain.

SANT ANDREU COMTAL

The new high-speed infrastructure runs underground with an external tunnel between concrete walls. The conventional gauge lines of Maçanet and Mataró had to be moved and a new suburban train station was built.

MONTCADA I REIXAC

A 3,709-metre tunnel was built for the track to cross the town, and runs under the Ripoll River. It crosses the urban area under the railway corridor for the Barcelona-Portbou conventional gauge line.  

Most of the boring (3,017 metres) was executed by the EPB type Earth Pressure Balance Shield). 

The tunnel boring machine, called “Montcada”, completed the work on 28th September 2011.

A comprehensive control and monitoring plan has guaranteed safety at all times in construction of the tunnel, and prevented any structural impact on buildings and terrain.

MONTMELÓ

There has been an important urban integration of the railway in this municipality, thanks to the agreement reached in December 2005 between the Ministry of Public Works, the Regional Government, Adif and Montmeló Town Council to tunnel the conventional gauge and high-speed lines.

The actions involved building two tunnels for both lines, both of them 1,340 metres long, with screens. Two new viaducts over the Congost River and a new station for the suburban train services were also built.

The new station is a modern building that is fully accessible from both sides of the town. Its surface area is about 1,250 m2 and has two 240 m long underground platforms.

When the new conventional gauge infrastructure is put into service on 9th April 2012, it will mean that the trains will stop running through the town of Montmeló, which has been happening since the Barcelona-Granollers line was put into service 150 years ago.

GIRONA URBAN TUNNELS

Completion of work by the “Gerunda” tunnel boring machine marks a successful end to one of the line’s most complex sections. The end of the tunnelling process in the new urban tunnel for the High Speed Madrid-Barcelona-French border Line is a decisive step in this key infrastructure for the development of railway transport between Spain and Europe.

The “Gerunda” tunnel boring machine ended its digging work on 7th July 2011 after boring 2.9 km. The boring was completed in just over a year and two months, from when tunnel boring machine was put into action on 21st April 2010.

In September 2010 boring of the first tunnel between the Mas Xirgu estate and Parc Central came to an end. Afterwards, after covering the half-kilometre of the new station building, “Gerunda” started on the second tunnel, going down from 26 to 40 metres deep to cross under the River Ter, to then head through the Fontajau district towards the shaft.

The tunnel will link to the Sarriá tunnel (bored out in the traditional method), in the end creating an underground structure covering over seven kilometres and crossing Girona.

Safety has been a priority across all planning and performance stages. With the help of around 2,800 control mechanisms, continuous monitoring of the work has been performed which has not affected either the building structures or the land.

In the new station, the high speed services will have 4 tracks and 2 platforms measuring 450 metres.

Travellers will head from the present hall, via provisional access, towards the intermediate Parc Central area, where the access to the new platforms is located.

A transparent structure will provide natural light to the underground area.

These new infrastructures will improve the town planning and public transport system in Girona, allowing more services and shorter journey times across the board.