we receive e we publish the following press release from RFI, a company of the Ferrovie dello Stato group.
Florence, 5 November 2024 – The mole is ready to leave Marika, which will dig the second tunnel of the Florence AV Passante from Campo di Marte to Rifredi.
The presentation of the milling machine took place at the Campo di Marte (Florence) construction site, in the presence of the President of the Tuscany Region Eugenio Giani, of the Mayor of Florence, Sara Funaro, of the Chief Executive Officer and General Manager of Rete Ferroviaria Italiana (FS Group), Gianpiero Strisciuglio e of the CEO of Pizzarotti & C, Richard Garre.
The work is part of the Passante AV of Florence, which includes the construction of the new Belfiore AV station and a railway bypass AV composed of two single-track tunnels, located on average 20 meters deep. The new AV line will have a total length of 8,35 km.
Technically called TBM (Tunnel Boring Machine), Marika It weighs 1.500 tons, is 112 meters long, has a digging diameter of 9,4 meters and has a power of over 4.500 Kw. The name of this mole was chosen thanks to an online contest open to all citizens.
The departure of Marika, which will be used for the excavation of the track tunnel to the South, is planned in continuity with the activity of Iris, the first TBM activated last year, which has already dug approximately 1,8 km in the Campo di Marte – Belfiore section. When Iris the mole will have arrived near the Fortezza da Basso Marika excavation of the second tunnel will begin, with its start-up scheduled for November 2024. In fact, the two tunnel boring machines will excavate in ways and at times that will prevent them from operating simultaneously.
This work will free the surface network from the transit of high-speed trains, will enrich the offer of regional services for the benefit of citizens, businesses and economic and tourist activities, will bring benefits to local and metropolitan mobility, will redevelop the municipal and railway areas between Belfiore and Santa Maria Novella.
The new configuration of the Florentine railway network will ensure that high-speed trains no longer interfere with regional trains, thus improving their regularity and, at the same time, increasing the capacity of surface lines, a prerequisite for a potential increase in local journeys.
The Passante AV of Florence is included in the project Talking Shipyards, created by the FS Group in collaboration with the MIT, to transparently describe the activities and benefits of the new infrastructures through public initiatives, information points and a web page dedicated to strategic works.
Rete Ferroviaria Italiana is the client of the work, while Italferr has been assigned the management of the works, which will be carried out by the Florentia Consortium (composed of the companies Pizzarotti and Saipem).
