After about nine gauges through the hard gneiss, on February 26th 2019, the two double tunnel boring machines “Anna” and “Magda” of the Italian Ghella, which are realizing the tunneling infrastructure of the Follo Line railway project, completed the drilling work and successfully broke through at Kvakestad near the center of Ski.
The spectacular breaking of the last rock diaphragm occurred in the presence of about 350 miners and guests, Italians, Norwegians and Spaniards. It took about 18,000 hours of work for each TBM (Tunnel Boring Machine), four shifts a day. 112 miners, mostly Italians, were employed in the production work and 24 in maintenance work.
The Follo Line is Norway’s biggest infrastructure project. The tunneling work is carried out by the Italian Ghella and the Spanish Acciona in joint-venture. The two tunnels, 20 kilometers long, will link Oslo to Ski, some 30 km south of Oslo. The start of the high-speed line is expected from 2021 and it is expected that it will reduce substantially the volume of traffic around Oslo and reduce to half the travel time between the two cities.. This is an important goal. Once the excavation work of the tunnels has been completed, AGJV will now carry out all the railway installation works inside the tunnels, except for the signaling systems. The work will be completed in the next two years.
