Ghella release.

The joint venture Acciona Ghella (AGJV) is now handing over* the longest railway tunnel in the Nordics to this date, the Blix tunnel, to Bane NOR. The tunnel compounds 20 km of the Follo Line and is the first long Norwegian railway tunnel with two separate tunnel tubes. The tunnel will provide a better train service and halve the travel time between Oslo and Ski.

The Blix tunnel, which will be an essential link in the InterCity development southeast of Oslo, has been designed and built by Acciona and Ghella on behalf of Bane NOR. The takeover marks the end of the work, which has been going on for seven years. According to the plan, the tunnel will open to traffic as early as December 2022.

Cuts travel time in half.

With double tracks and a top speed of 250 km/h, the train capacity between Oslo and Ski will double. It will also reduce the travel time between Ski and Oslo from 22 to 11 minutes.

27,000 tonnes of CO2 emissions have been saved

The joint venture AGJV has worked purposefully to reduce CO2 emissions in the project. By adopting world-leading technology, new solutions and good interaction with local partners, the joint venture has cut over 27,000 tonnes of CO2 emissions.

Technological progress

The Follo Line was the first tunnel project in Norway to be operated using four large, double-shield hard rock tunnel boring machines (TBM’s). The TBM’s have made it possible to build two separate tunnel tubes excavating from 4 separate points- both of which have an excavation diameter of 9.9 meters and a length of 19.5 kilometres. The TBM’s were developed for this specific project in collaboration between Acciona and Ghella.

*Final delivery in Februrary 2023