Until the middle of 2021, nearly 119 kilometres of slab track are being built, 60 kilometres of which in the tunnel. In addition to that, there are 23 switches as well as the construction of 50-Hz-, telecommunication and traction power systems. A further 2500 kilometres of cabling gets installed, the mechanical equipment with ventilation systems, technical rooms and signage are being implemented alongside with the build of 78 kilometres of LED hand-rail. The total order volume amounts to about 243 million Euros and up to 140 employees will be busy on site at the same time.
“We are starting the new guideway structure by equipping the “Albabstiegstunnel” near the main station in Ulm“, outlines total project manager Werner Fahrnberger the schedule of lots 4 and 3 of the large project. Specifically, so Fahrnberger, the surveying networks initially are produced, which enable a high level of building accuracy, and the building plots get prepared, before the first track is actually being laid at the start of the coming year. Transport of the long-rails – the tracks, where the trains will eventually roll, takes place with a special truck with a length of more than 120 metres. “Mostly“, so Philipp Nachbaur, “the tracks are laid via the detour of the 18 metre short tracks, over which the final track is being put into place and can be assembled.” However, this detour is saved here, because: “The temporary assembly tracks subsequently also had to be re-assembled.”
Upon completion the travelling time in the long-distance traffic from Ulm to Stuttgart will be halved to approx. half an hour from a previous nearly full hour. The high-speed trains thereby reach a driving speed of 250 km/h. “This is also the reason why the Deutsche Bank is having the tracks laid in slab track“, the construction specialist explains. “This method of construction has simply proved itself at high speeds and the thereby associated high maintenance costs of the tracks. Slab track has an average life cycle of more than 60 years. The cyclically recurring costs can significantly be reduced there.“ With this construction method, the tracks are not on the more commonly known ballast bed but are concreted in a concrete base layer onto a hydraulically bound bearing layer, thus a bearing layer made from aggregates such as gravel or grit, which are solidified with cement and water.
