Fast and Safe at BrixleggThe client, Brenner Eisenbahn, awarded a contract in May 2004 for the construction of the 3.5 km Brixlegg tunnel, which is part of the Lower Inn Valley railway in Austria. The east-west line between Kufstein and Innsbruck will connect to the future Brenner high speed railway which will cross north to south the Brenner Pass across the Alps with a 55 km base tunnel. After only seven months, the tunnel broke through on 10th February, 2005. Porr Tunnelbau and Bilfinger Berger, the contractors, finished tunnelling approximately two months ahead of schedule. Tunnelling crews worked in three shifts, 24 hours around the clock since mid-July 2004, using the drill/blast method in a top heading / bench sequence. Up to five crews worked simultaneously. The rapid breakthrough marks the major achievement of a project which successfully combined speed and safety. In October alone, progress reached approximately 900 m. The rapid construction progress was made possible by the good cooperation with the Brixlegg citizens' initiative and the understanding of the local residents. Among other things, solutions were found jointly with the population for the evacuation of the muck. 300,000 cu m of debris was extracted from the mountain.However, the Brixlegg tunnel breakthrough does not conclude tunnelling. A 330 m access tunnel is due to hole through at end-February and the excavation of the remaining benches of the tunnel will take until the end of April. Click at/48. Visit www.beg.co.at, www.porr.at/tunnelbau and www.bilfingerberger.de 09/05.