Adrian Murray
Business Reporter
Report from DenmarkFemern
The completed tunnel reduces travel time between Hamburg and Copenhagen
A record-breaking tunnel has been built under the Baltic Sea between Denmark and Germany, reducing travel time and improving Scandinavia’s connections with other Europes.
Running 18 km (11 miles), Fehmarnbelt will become the world’s longest pre-built road and rail tunnel.
It is also an incredible feat of engineering, with tunnel segments placed above the seabed and combined together.
The project’s main construction site is at the north entrance of the tunnel on the coast of Roland, southeast of Denmark.
The facility spans more than 500 hectares (1,235 acres) and includes ports and factories that manufacture tunnel sections known as “elements.”
“It’s a huge facility,” says Henrik Vincenten, chief executive of Femern, the state-owned Danish company that builds the tunnels.
Element reinforced steel with a length of 217m (712ft) and width of 42m can be cast in concrete.
Most underwater tunnels, including a 50km channel tunnel between the UK and France, dig holes in the bedrock below the seabed. Instead, like Legobrick, 90 individual elements are linked.
“We’re breaking records with this project,” Vincensensen said. “The soaked tunnels were built previously, but they have never been built on this scale.”
The 18km long railway and road tunnel between Denmark and Germany consists of five parallel tubes
The price tag is around 7.4 billion euros ($8.1 billion, £6.3 billion), and the scheme is primarily funded by Denmark and costs 1.3 billion euros from the European Commission.
It is one of the region’s largest infrastructure projects ever and is part of a broader EU plan to strengthen travel links across the continent while reducing flights.
Once completed, the journey between Rødbyhavn in southern Denmark and Puttgarten in northern Germany takes just 10 minutes by car, 7 minutes by train, and exchanges a 45-minute ferry voyage.
The new railway route, which bypasses western Denmark, will halve travel time between Copenhagen and Hamburg from 5 hours to 2.5 hours, providing “greenergy” shortcuts for freight and passengers.
“We’re not only linking Denmark to Germany, but Scandinavia to Central Europe,” Vinsensen said. “Everyone is the winner,” he insists. “And by traveling less than 160km, we reduce carbon and reduce the impact of transportation.”
The entrance to the tunnel, towering by the crane, is at the foot of a steep coastal wall where sparkling seawater lies above your head.
“So now we’re in the first part of the tunnel,” announces Senior Construction Manager Anders Gert Wede as we walk along the highways of the future. It is one of five parallel tubes for each element.
There are two railway lines, two roads (there are two lanes in each direction), and a maintenance and emergency corridor.
At the other end, a huge steel door holds the ocean down. “It’s very thick, as you can hear,” he says, pounding the metal. “When there is a completed element in the port, it is towed to its place and slowly immersed behind a steel door here.”
Not only are these elements long, they are extremely heavy, weighing over 73,000 tons. But incredibly, watertightly sealing the edges and fitting them into the ballast tank gives you enough buoyancy to tow the back of the tugboat.
It is then a painstakingly complicated procedure, lowering the elements into a trench dug at the seabed using an underwater camera and a GPS guide to line up with 15mm accuracy using an underwater camera and a GPS guide.
“We have to be very careful,” Wede emphasized. “There’s a system called “pin and catch,” and there’s a V-shaped structure, with several arms grabbing the element and slowly dragging it into place. ”
woman
The tunnel is being built from north to south.
Denmark sits at the mouth of the Baltic Sea, sitting in a busy transport lane in the ocean spread.
Goltermann, a concrete professor at the Institute of Technology Denmark, said the layers of clay and chalk are too soft.
The bridge was initially considered, but strong winds could disrupt traffic and security was another important consideration.
“There was a risk that the ship would hit the bridge. We could build a bridge so they could withstand it,” he adds. “But this is pretty deep water and the largest ships can sail there.”
So it was decided to add Mr. Golterman and go to the soaked tunnel. “They looked at it and said, “Now, what’s the cheapest? Tunnel. What’s the safest? Tunnel.”
Denmark and Germany signed an agreement to build the tunnel in 2008, but the scheme was delayed by opposition from ferry operators and German conservation groups concerned about ecological impacts.
One such environmental group, Nabu (The Nature and Biodiversity Conservation Union), argued that this area of the Baltic Sea is an important habitat for larvae and harbor mice, and is sensitive to underwater noise.
However, in 2020, their legal challenges were dismissed by a German federal court.
“We’ve done a lot of initiatives to make sure the impact of this project is as small as possible,” says Vincensensen, referring to the 300-hectare wetland nature and recreational area planned on reclaimed land built from sand and rock dr.
When the tunnel opens in 2029, women estimate that over 100 trains and 12,000 cars will use it every day.
According to the plan, the proceeds collected from the toll will repay the state-sponsored loans that have been taken out to fund the construction, and Vincensensen will calculate the calculations that take about 40 years. “In the end, users are going to pay,” he says.
They also hope that employment, business and tourism in Roland, one of Denmark’s poorest regions, will boost large investments.
“The locals here have been waiting for this project for years,” said Wede, who grew up nearby. “They look forward to the businesses that come to the area.”
