Clean and Safe on Minimum Space: KOCH Pipe Conveyor Systems at the Lotschberg Base Tunnel

摘要

Where millions of tons of rock have to be moved, the transport system has to fulfill highest demands on reliability. Moreover, flexibility was required in more than one respect when building the Lotschberg Base Tunnel in the Swiss Alps. The excavated material has to be transported to the outside and -at a later stage - partly back to the inside of the mountain through a tunnel, winding towards the tunnel site. KOCH Transporttechnik GmbH from Wadgassen/Germany provided a solution which perfectly matches with the requirements for maximum flexibility with minimum space available: three Pipe Conveying Systems in unconventional arrangement. The Lotschberg Base Tunnel is built for the fast direct rail link between Frutigen in the Kander valley (Canton Bern, Switzerland) and Raron in the Rhone valley (Canton Wallis, Switzerland). Together with the new Gotthard Tunnel, the Lotschberg Base Tunnel forms the new NEAT transalpine route which allows a quick transit through the Alps by means of a high-capacity rail transport system.