Loca­tion: near Würz­burg
Period: 2013 to 2016
Con­s­truc­tion: ARGE: AUGUST REINERS Bau­un­ter­neh­mung GmbH | Bare­sel GmbH | Leon­hard Weiss Bau­un­ter­neh­mung | BAUER Spe­zi­al­tief­bau GmbH
Cate­gory: Civil engi­nee­ring
Cli­ent: DB Netz AG

The over­all pro­ject ser­ves to bypass the Schwarz­kopf tun­nel. Bet­ween Lauf­ach and Hei­gen­brü­cken, a 926-metre-long tun­nel pas­ses under the Schwarz­kopf. Despite mul­ti­ple reno­va­tions, a high level of main­ten­ance is requi­red to keep the appro­xi­m­ately 160-year-old tun­nel in ope­ra­tion. The steep incline of the route in this area, which is more than 20 per thousand in places, also requi­res pushing ope­ra­ti­ons for heavy freight trains. 

Tog­e­ther with the maxi­mum per­mit­ted speed of 70 kilo­me­ters per hour, this leads to dis­rup­ti­ons in ope­ra­ti­ons and makes the tun­nel a bot­t­len­eck in the traf­fic net­work. A fun­da­men­tal rene­wal of the tun­nel would only be tech­ni­cally fea­si­ble at great expense and is the­r­e­fore not eco­no­mic­ally viable. 

Deut­sche Bahn has the­r­e­fore deci­ded to build a bypass around the Schwarz­kopf Tun­nel. The so-cal­led “dou­ble-track bypass” has pro­ven to be the most cost-effec­tive alter­na­tive route. This is around eight kilo­me­ters long and devia­tes from the exis­ting route by a maxi­mum of 500 meters. It runs mainly in a tun­nel in an east-west direc­tion in the muni­ci­pal areas of Hei­gen­brü­cken and Lauf­ach. A total of four tun­nels will be built in the plan­ning appr­oval sec­tion (PFA) 3 bet­ween Lauf­ach and Heigenbrücken. 

The new route enables a flat ali­gnment so that the maxi­mum per­mit­ted speed can be increased to 150 kilo­me­ters per hour. Due to the fact that most of the line is in a tun­nel, noise emis­si­ons along the route will be signi­fi­cantly redu­ced and the popu­la­tion in Hei­gen­brü­cken, Hain and Lauf­ach will be con­sider­a­bly reli­e­ved of rail noise in future. The relief in Hei­gen­brü­cken will be par­ti­cu­larly signi­fi­cant, as the con­s­truc­tion of the new route will eli­mi­nate rail traf­fic within the town. 

The pro­ject com­pri­ses the con­s­truc­tion of five sin­gle-track tun­nels using the mining method (approx. 7,000 m), the con­s­truc­tion of one sin­gle-track and one dou­ble-track tun­nel using the cut-and-cover method (approx. 600 m and approx. 800 m respec­tively) as well as various engi­nee­ring struc­tures and a stop­ping point inclu­ding super­s­truc­ture work.

TECHNICAL DATA
3 trough struc­tures (total approx. 1,200 m)
14 retai­ning walls (total approx. 1,800 m)
3 rail­road over­pas­ses (clear width < 30 m)
3 road over­pas­ses (clear width < 20 m)
2 swi­vel areas (approx. 500 m each)
Rail­way body (approx. 1,500 m)
6 sto­rage areas (approx. 1,300,000 m³)
Back­fil­ling of Schwarz­kopf Tun­nel (approx. 50,000 m³)
3 modu­lar buil­dings for equip­ment tech­no­logy
1 stop with 2 side plat­forms inclu­ding pas­sen­ger under­pass (approx. 300 m each)