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n o w l e d g e
Personal and professional challenges
I believe that there is a very important cha-
llenge with regards to high-speed railways;
that our teams receive highly specialised
training. One of the permanent challenges
in this type of work is the precision of the
rails. To give you an idea, in Tyrol (Austria)
we are responsible for the execution of Lot
A1 where the placement of the rail requires
a precision of +-0.5 mm.
Tell us about ALPINE’s experience in
high-speed railways?
Our experience is mainly in two countries:
Switzerland and Austria.
In which projects of this type is ALPINE
currently working on?
We are working on the Tauern and the Lain-
zer tunnels; on section Kundl of the Brenner
corridor; in Lot A1, Radfeld-Baumkirchen,
and on one of the most important projects
in the world, the Saint Gotthard base tun-
nel.
From your perspective, which is the
most important high-speed railway
project currently being executed in the
world?
Without any doubt, the Chino project. Chi-
na, the country with the most kilometres of
high-speed railway, 8,358 km in operations
since 2008, is the world’s leader. The sa-
turation of lines and the need to reduce
travel time due to the long distances sepa-
rating the economic hubs and major cities
of its 23 provinces have prompted China
to plan a macro project that aims to con-
nect all the country’s cities with a 16,000
km network by 2020.
What is the outlook for the develop-
ment of high-speed railways throug-
hout the world?
The European high-speed lines stretch
over mover than 6,000 km and it is expec-
ted that by 2020 the figure will be more
than 9,000 km.
One of the most complicated projects is
ALP Transit, approved in 1992, to impro-
ve travellers and merchandise transport.
It is expected that Spain and Portugal
will be connected by the Madrid-Lisbon
high-speed line. Over the coming years,
Denmark and Poland will also have high-
speed railway lines.
In Russia, work is currently ongoing in the
Moscow-Saint Petersburg project, parallel
to the current one.
Turkey has planned an extensive 4,000
km high-speed railway network that will
cover the entire country.
We can and we want; we have excellent
professionals and the know-how that we
will put at the service of any high-speed
project in the world for which we are cho-
sen as contractors.
Lorenz Koell’s
Director of ALPlNE’s Road and Railway
Construction division of ALPlNE