RTR 4/2010 27 Senior representative DB Netz AG, Halle/Leipzig node; Leipzig City Tunnel DB Netz AG, Leipzig dirk.stecher@deutschebahn.com Dipl.-Ing. Dirk Stecher zig city centre, plus the necessary stations, ramps and the sections of the new line at surface level as well as additional investments in the railway network to make the most out of the new tunnel’s impact on traffic. The tunnel is being designed for a maximum speed of 80 km/h. Each of the tunnel bores is being driven with an external diameter of 9.00 m, which has been calculated to allow enough net space for the standard clearance gauge laid down in the EBO (German Ordinance on the Construction and Operation of Railways). All four stations inside the tunnel (Fig. 2) are going to have one island platform, whereas the station of Semmelweisstrasse in a surface cutting is going to have two side platforms (Fig. 3). The two tunnel sections between the stations have been driven underground, whilst the station complexes and the ramps have been constructed using the cut-and-cover technique. The stations have a double-shell lining, and the tunnel tubes a single-shell lining. At both the northern and southern ends, the new line is linked into the existing network by means of ramps and flyovers, obviating the need to cross other tracks. The purpose of building the City Tunnel in Leipzig is to provide access to the city centre by local rail-based public transport and to connect it with the surrounding region. The project means a fundamental improvement in the traffic and transport situation in both the city centre and the hinterland. All the larger towns within the Leipzig catchment area are going to be directly accessible from the city centre. To achieve this, the tunnel is going to establish a direct link between two existing terminal stations, Leipzig-Hauptbahnhof (Fig. 1) and Leipzig-Bayerischer Bahnhof, and thereby close a gap in Deutsche Bahn’s existing railway network and thus become the backbone of the S-Bahn (urban regional express) system as planned for the future. The time taken to travel between the region’s intermediate centres and the middle of Leipzig is going to be cut, making it more attractive to use the railway. There are also going to be improved links to Leipzig/Halle airport, the new trade-fair complex, the old tradefair complex and the Leipzig media centre. Prior to embarking upon the planning assessment procedure, various potential corridors were considered before determining the precise route for the new tunnel. Given the transport-planning specifications, however, it did not take very long to reject possible alternatives. In May 2000, the German Federal Railway Authority (EBA, Eisenbahn-Bundesamt) issued its planning assessment decision for the whole of the City Tunnel, including the northern and southern connections to the railway’s existing infrastructure. The plan approval was granted precisely two years later. The new line has a total length of approximately four kilometres (including 1.4 kilometres underground) and means a complete reorganisation of the system of rail-based local public transport. The target traffic volume underlying the project envisages a total of 12 SBahn and regional train services plus one long-distance train working in each direction every hour. 1 Technical description The scope of the project includes the construction of two new double-bore, singletrack tunnels running in parallel under LeipThe Leipzig City Tunnel One of the biggest infrastructure projects undergoing implementation in a city centre in Germany at present is going to fill a gap in the existing railway network between two terminal stations in Leipzig (Leipzig-Hauptbahnhof and LeipzigBayerischer Bahnhof) and, at the same time, create a new underground railway access to the centre of that city. Representative DB Netz AG, Leipzig michael.menschner@deutschebahn.com Dipl.-Ing. Michael Menschner Fig. 1: Tunnel mouths at Leipzig-Hauptbahnhof (Source of all figures: the authors)
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