Renovation of the Lötschberg summit tunnel completed for the time being
Published: Thursday, Oct 3rd 2024, 11:10
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The renovation of the roadway in the Lötschberg railroad tunnel comes to an end this week. The work took six years and cost a total of 180 million Swiss francs. Defects in the concrete in the northern part of the tunnel will be repaired at a later date.
With the completion of the work, the associated traffic restrictions will now be lifted, as the bus and rail company BLS announced on Thursday. From Saturday (October 5), car trains will once again run every half hour through the tunnel between Kandersteg in Bern and Goppenstein in the canton of Valais.
However, further renovation work is still pending: In the northern part of the tunnel, the concrete installed in 2021 and 2022 has defects, as was made public in August. The road surface has cracks and is crumbling over a length of around 50 meters. The press release went on to say that water containing sulphate had leaked onto the road surface in this section.
Further procedure is defined
The next steps are expected to be defined by the end of the year, as BLS informed the Keystone-SDA news agency on request. It will then become clear whether further closures are necessary and how much it will cost to repair the damage.
The old ballasted track in the approximately 15-kilometre-long Lötschberg railroad tunnel has been replaced with a concrete track. The renovation work was originally scheduled to cost 105 million Swiss francs and be completed by the end of 2023.
Last year, BLS and Marti, the construction company entrusted with part of the work, announced that the renovation would cost 180 million. Unforeseen difficulties in the mountain and water ingress had caused the additional costs.
©Keystone/SDA
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