Kugelblick.de

Day of the open construction site

Eppstein is getting a new tunnel for the railway. The old tunnel, built between 1875-1877, is overaged.

The new tunnel runs parallel to the old one. In 2013 the railway will switch to the new tunnel and the old one is going to be filled with the excavated material.

Normally the public has no access to the construction site, but today the tunnel with all its equipment was shown to the people. Even the kids were allowed to play with the remote controls of the digging machines. All guided by the workers of the tunnel.

I had a big problem shooting my panorama. Under normal conditions I can clearly hear the shutter of the camera and thus know when the bracketing series is over to move to the next position. But this time the big drilling machine was making holes in the front plane of the tunnel. The noise was incredible! Even way too loud for the kids next to me.

The wooden cross at the front end of the tunnel was installed for the tunnel christening one day ago. For the time of the construction the tunnel is named Renate-Tunnel.

Later today all this decoration will be removed and the work on the tunnel will continue. Drilling holes, filling them with dynamite, rock blasting, spray coat the walls with concrete and removing the excavated rocks ... and again the same thing for the next 1.6 meters (that's the length of the drill), and again ...

The period of the blasting: twice a day, synchronized with the schedule of the trains of the nearby railway.

... and again .... Boom! ...

Location (lat, lon): 50° 8.47 N, 8° 23.0 E
Date: 2011-03-19 13:01

Click in the pano and drag. Zoom in and out are Shift and Control.