29 October 2015, 12:45
The new CEVA railway line (Cornavin/Eaux-Vives/Annemasse) will close a gap between the French and Swiss train networks in the canton of Geneva. The idea for this originally came about around 1880, in 1912 a contract was signed by the canton of Geneva and the Swiss Federal Railways that provided the realization of a railway connection between Cornavin and Annemasse, but which never actually came into being. Until now, there was only a railway line for regional rail services between Chêne-Bourg and Annemasse. The connection that is currently being built is intended to help solve the existing traffic problems of the metropolitan Geneva of the 21st century.
The construction work for the railway project, which will cost 1.5 billion Swiss francs, began in November 2011. The CEVA line stretches 16.1 kilometers, 14 of those in Switzerland, from the Cornavin station in Geneva to Annemasse via Eaux-Vives. The line runs mostly underground, made possible by the construction of two tunnels and several open-cut tunnels.
BAUER Spezialtiefbau Schweiz AG was also involved in the project and carried out the required specialist foundation engineering work for two sections. Section 23.12 runs from Carouge Bachet to Val d'Arve. A two-kilometer-long tunnel with an underground station in Bachet is being constructed in this section. The conventional advance are being developed from a 20-meter-deep shaft in Bachet and via the Val d'Arve ramp.
The Swiss subsidiary of Bauer Spezialtiefbau carried out the diaphragm wall and bored pile work from September 2012 to February 2013. 4,200 square meters of grab-excavated diaphragm wall with a width of one meter and a depth of 25 meters was produced for the shaft in Bachet. For Bachet station, which was to be constructed using the top-down method, 22 temporary primary piles with a diameter of 880 mm and depths of up to 28 meters were drilled. Bauer simultaneously completed approximately 4,100 square meters of diaphragm wall with a width of 0.8 meters and a depth of 22 meters for the retaining structure of the ramp in Val d'Arve using a second diaphragm wall grab.
Section 37.20 is at Chêne-Bourg. Bauer produced 24,500 square meters of grab-excavated diaphragm wall here from December 2013 to February 2015 for the open-cut section Foron, which is more than a kilometer long. A BAUER MC 64 duty-cycle crane with a grab unit was used, among other things. Bauer completed the work at the beginning of 2015 with an order value of around 28 million Swiss francs in total.
Some parts of the old route were able to be used for the new one. The section running from Eaux-Vives to the Swiss-French border is being converted to an underground railtrack, enabling a cycle and foot path to be created on the surface. The full completion and commissioning of the new railway line, with its five new stations, are planned for 2019. This connection will create a Swiss-French train network with 45 stations on a 230-kilometer-long line on both sides of the border.
Source: BAUER Aktiengesellschaft; Bauer Group