Webuild and joint-venture partner Vinci have won a contract to excavate a section of the Turin-Lyon high-speed/high-capacity railway base tunnel planned under the Alps.
Valued at 1.43bn euros (1.69bn USD), this work is part of the Trans-European Transport Network (TEN-T), the EU’s sustainable mobility initiative to connect the continent’s railway networks and increase the transport of people and goods on rail rather than road.
It’s estimated that by 2030, the Turin-Lyon railway will take enough trucks off the roads to contribute to the reduction of the equivalent of three million tonnes of CO2 every year.
Commissioned by Tunnel Euralpin Lyon Turin (TELT), the contract is for Lot 2, specifically Work Sites 6 – La Praz, and 7 – Saint-Martin-de-la-Porte. It involves excavating a total of 46km, including two parallel tunnels for the railway and auxiliary tunnels and caverns between the two towns.
Lot 2 is the second contract to be won by Webuild on the project. In 2020, the group and its joint-venture partners won a contract for Lot 5A. This involves preparatory work for a safety site at Modane and four ventilation shafts for the future base tunnel ahead of the creation of a logistics hub 500m under the Ambin Massif.
The entire TELT project will stretch for 65km between Susa in Piedmont, Italy and Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne in Savoy, France. Of its total length, 57.5km, will be underground, of which 10km has already been excavated.
