300 meter bridge will make all the difference for the rail corridor between Scandinavia and the rest of Europe. It is the part of the section that must be carried across Guldborgsund between Lolland and Falster.
The current bridge, King Frederik IX’s Bro – or KFIX, as it is called in Banedanmark, was inaugurated in 1963 with just a single railway track. It will be too little when the Fehmarn connection opens, and up to ten trains per hour are expected on the section between Ringsted and Fehmarn.
Was prepared for expansion
King Frederik IX’s bridge was actually prepared to be able to be expanded with an extra track. However, that work would disrupt traffic too much during the construction period. Furthermore, the section from the station in Nykøbing Falster is so curved that the trains cannot run at full speed. It is also being corrected in connection with the new railway bridge, thus solving two problems at once.
– It’s huge
Compared to the rest of the Fehmarn project, a railway bridge with a single track of 300 meters does not seem like much. But don’t let that fool you:
– This is huge. If there is no bridge, then there is no Fehmarn connection. That’s why it’s also great to be able to show it all in a slightly larger perspective, says Peter Jonasson, director of construction at Banedanmark.
First section finished in a month
It is actually A/S Femern Landanlæg that owns the project, but Banedanmark has the role of developer on their behalf. MT Højgaard is the general contractor on the bridge project.
According to Peter Falk, project manager at MT Højgaard, casting work on the first bridge section is already in full swing and will be finished within a month. A total of 11 bridge sections must be cast, including a flap section, and all manufactured on the construction site next to the bridge. Each bridge span is 20 meters long and seven meters wide and weighs around 500 tonnes.
– When we have to start mounting the bridge sections on the piles, it goes quite quickly. We expect it to take about three days to install the first one, but then we’ve learned that too. We expect the remaining ones to be installed in one day, says Peter Falk.
Don’t know what’s hiding under the seabed
The most critical element in the bridge construction will be to drill 29 pipes 30 meters below the seabed and get the new folding section to run synchronously with the old ones, says Mette Koch Sonnenborg, project manager at Banedanmark:
– Even though we have prepared thoroughly and done a lot of preliminary research, you never know what is hidden under the seabed. If we come across a very large rock, then we have to move it or possibly blow it up. We cannot change the location when we are working so close to the existing bridge, she says.
Expecting over 600 visitors
When FemernReport visited the open construction site in Nykøbing Falster on Sunday, 563 curious people had already stopped by for a tour, sausages and soft drinks. Banedanmark expects the number to reach the good side of 600 when the day is over.
