Work has started on construction of the $953.5m Botnia Rail Line in northern Sweden. The line will be 190km long and will include 30km of tunnels. It will run from Nyland, north of Kramfors, via Örnsköldsvik to Umeå. The line will be operational at the beginning of 2006.
A special company, Botniabanan AB, has been set up to arrange the finance and be responsible for the detailed design, construction, testing and leasing of the line. The Swedish State owns 91% of Botniabanan, the remaining 9% being divided between the municipalities of Kramfors, Örnsköldsvik, Nordmaling and Umeå. Since funding will be through loans, construction of the line will not form part of the government’s normal appropriation of funds.
Among the first of the contracts to be awarded is the $7.9m, 1.1km long Kalldal rock tunnel, about 10 km north of Örnsköldsvik. The contract has been awarded to Lemminkäinen Construction Ltd, a company in the Finnish construction group Lemminkäinen. “The Kalldal Tunnel is our fifth new construction assignment in Sweden and is an important milestone in our strategy of expanding in Scandinavia,” says Bjarne Liljestrand, regional manager for Scandinavia, at Lemminkäinen Construction’s Swedish office in Stockholm.
The Kalldal Tunnel lies in an east-west direction. From the west, the rock consists of 300m of diabase and approximately 160m of granite, and the remainder will be in sedimentary gneiss. The tunnel will be blasted to a width of 8m, which will leave 250mm for reinforcement and drainage without intruding on the necessary free space. The blasted area will be 72.3m². Grouting will be performed as required. The bottom of the tunnel will be filled for drainage and the track foundation. In the finished tunnel the height to the roof will be 7m above the top of the rails.
