Norwegian contractor Veidekke has signed a contract with Norway’s National Rail Administration to build two train tunnels for the Farriseidet – Porsgrunn project, which is part of a major upgrade of the Vestfold line south-west of Oslo, it was announced late last week. The value of the contract is NOK 980M (USD 171M) excluding VAT.
A completely new 23.5 km railway line from Farriseidet to Porsgrunn will replace the line between the towns of Larvik and Porsgrunn. On the present 35km line it takes trains 34 minutes to travel from Larvik to Porsgrunn. The new line will reduce this to 12 minutes.
The Skillingsmyr tunnel will be the longest at 3,810m, and will extend from the Telemark county border to Gunnarsrød at the head of Langangfjorden. From Gunnarsrød a 580m tunnel will be built through Ønnsåsen that takes the track into the Storberget tunnel. Blasting and securing the first 300m of the 4,680km-long Storberget Storberget tunnel is also included in Veidekke’s contract.
Veidekke will also build a 264m cross cut and two escape tunnels totalling just over 700m. Construction of the tunnels starts in January and will last till September 2016.
The contract Veidekke has been awarded is the second of four major construction tenders of the USD 920M project, which consists of seven tunnels with a combined length of 14.5km.