The Buschtunnel in the south of Aachen (located on the line Aachen-Liège,
which is part of the line Cologne-Bruxelles) is the oldest operational railway
tunnel in Germany, it was built between 1838 and 1843. The old tube is in a bad
condition, speed is limited to 40 km/h. As a first step of renovation, a new
tube is excavated on the south side, it will be about 700 m long. The picture
was taken on 15 November 2005, when about half of the excavation was finished.
Looking from near the eastern end (where the excavation started in June 2005),
the end of the tunnel is visible in the dust. Shotcrete (Spritzbeton) was being
applied to the walls and the ceiling. The excavation is covered by pipes which
are drilled into the ground around the space that is to be excavated. The pipes
and the sections formed by this procedure can clearly be seen.
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The new tube will be single-tracked, permitted speed will be 160 km/h. It is
planned to be operational in 2007, then the old tube can be taken out of
service. The line is not very busy, about 20 trains per day in each direction at
this time, so a short single-tracked section should be no problem. Later the old
tube will be renovated with a new interior shell, transforming it from
double-tracked to single-tracked and rising the permitted speed to 160 km/h.
Thus in the far future the line will be continouosly double-tracked again. The
running mode will then be changed from right-hand running (with a flyover on the
west side of the tunnel, which is to be removed) to left-hand running (with a
flat crossover at Aachen Hbf).
<p>
Digital photo by
<a href="http://www-users.rwth-aachen.de/christoph.schmitz2/index.html">Christoph
Schmitz</a>
(<a href="mailto:christoph.schmitz2@post.rwth-aachen.de">christoph.schmitz2@post.rwth-aachen.de</a>)