If You Think Network Rail Have Got Problems
I found this article on Global Rail News entitled Sweden’s longest rail tunnel finally opens.
The article is about the nine kilometre long, Hallandsås Tunnel. This is said.
The €1.2 billion Hallandsås Tunnel was finally opened by Sweden’s Minister for Enterprise and Innovation, Mikael Damberg, and Trafikverket director general Lena Erixon on December 8.
Construction had started in 1992.
So I looked up the Wikipedia entry for Hallandsås Tunnel. It is certainly an epic saga of biblical proportions.
This is a section entitled 1990s: Problems, scandal, and stoppage.
Construction began in 1992, and the traffic opening was originally planned for 1995. However, construction was plagued by major difficulties concerning large amounts of water seeping in from surrounding rock, only a small fraction of which had been foreseen. Additionally, the original drill, which was said to drill 100 meters per week, broke down after drilling only 18 m (59 ft). The rock was too soft, so the machine could not use it to pull itself forward. The contractor tried to drill traditionally, but had to spend a lot of effort on sealing the water leaks. The contractor went bankrupt and a new contractor, Skanska, was contracted. The new contractor had similar trouble but a better contract that gave compensation for troublesome rock conditions.
A scandal broke out when it was learned that a poisonous sealing compound Rhoca-Gil was used during construction. This substance was linked to the death of nearby livestock. Rhoca-Gil contains acrylamide, a toxic chemical that is mutagenic and possibly carcinogenic. The main contractor, Skanska, took no special precautions for the sealant, nor did it tell its own workers or the local population of the risks. By October 1997, local cattle and fish started dying and workers were becoming ill. The local press started an investigation. After tests were done showing high levels of acrylamide contamination, the site was declared a high risk zone and the sale of agricultural products from the region was banned. Skanska, along with Rhone-Poulenc and Swedish Railways all had criminal charges brought against them; some senior executives resigned as a result.
Construction was halted in late 1997. By this time, nearly 3 km (1.9 mi) had been bored in each tunnel: 1,200 m (3,937 ft) at the north end, 1,700 m (5,577 ft) at the south end, and 40 m (131 ft) at the central adit).
Wikipedia also says this about the cost of the tunnel.
Cost overrun has been large. The cost was expected in 1992 to be 1 billion Swedish krona (SEK). The cost from 1992 to 1997 was in reality more than SEK 2 billion, for less than half the tunnel length. Since the remaining cost at the beginning of 2005 was calculated to be more than SEK 4 billion, there was initially much debate and hesitation as to whether to halt or resume work. The total cost is likely to reach over SEK 10.5 billion (approximately 1.25 billion USD as calculated in 2015), before the project is finished.
Network Rail’s problems at Farnworth tunnel were tiny by comparison.
The Anonymous Widower 