A big Demag CC 1100 stands waiting in the Rhône valley in August for the completion of welding on the 180t solid steel cutter head for a new Herrenknecht tunnel boring machine.
It was lifted into position later in the month. Around it stand three 150t mobiles also busy lifting equipment onto the 150m train that makes up the rest of the boring machine, a kind of mobile factory for rock cutting and tunnelling. The machine is being assembled for the first southern drive from Steg of the 37km Lötschberg base tunnel, the western of the two Alptransit scheme rail tunnels linking north and south Europe through Switzerland. Contractor is MaTrans, a consortium of Switzerland’s Marti Tunnelbau, Germany’s Waltergruppe, Austria’s PORR and the UK’s Balfour Beatty. It will carry out some $500m of work on the project.