The 9.69m diameter Herrenknecht TBM on the Cabrera high speed rail tunnel project in Spain has holed through and is being prepared for the second run from mid-year.
Excavation started in July last year and the contractor, a joint venture of FCC Construccion and Construcciones Sanchez Domiunguez-Sando, made good progress on the 6.2km long drive over six months. The double shield (S-373) holed through at the end of January.
Geology along the route in the Sierra de la Cabrera mountains comprised limestone and dolomite. The TBM has a cutterhead power of 4900kW.
The 8.75m i.d. tunnel lining consists of seven segmental sections. Safety cross passages will be built at approximately every 400m to connect the rail running tunnels.
ADIF, the Spanish rail network company, is building the Cabrera twin tubes as part of the 11.2km section of the Siete Aguas-Bunol part of the high-speed network between Valencia and Madrid. The Cabrera running tunnels are each 7.25km long and mostly TBM-driven (T&TI, January).
The first of the twin tunnels is finished on the Cabrera high speed rail project, in Spain
