On the 26/09/2015 the ceremony was held for the launch of a TBM in at the Brenner Base Tunnel in Innsbruck, Austria. The cavern at the Ahrental end was used for assembly and launch. There were 76 pieces of the TBM shield to be unassembled, transported and then reassembled. This took three months of none stop work. The TBM has a diameter of 7.93 m and weighs 1,800 tons. The first pieces of the TBM, were manufactured by Herrenknecht, and had arrived at the Ahrental site on the 26/06/2015. It has been almost a year since they have started work on the Tulfes-Pfons lot. The 200 m back-up had to be assembled outside and transported through the Ahrental access tunnel to the head of the TBM. Over the next 38 months the TBM will excavate 15 km of exploratory tunnel towards Italy, in the south. For further information on the project click here, at/16 and it/103 for tunnelbuilder archive. Visit http://www.bbt-se.com/. 40/15.