CPK high-speed rail tunnel in Łódź receives building permit
The CPK company has received another building permit for a long-distance high-speed rail tunnel in Łódź. The decision relates to the most important element of the investment: the excavation of an over 4-kilometre-long section under the city centre. Construction work is already underway in Łódź in connection with other stages of this investment.
Thanks to the decision of the Łódź Voivode, the CPK company is ready to announce the last tender as part of this investment.
Obtaining a building permit allows the start of construction work on the High-Speed Railway tunnel in Łódź. This is one of the most demanding sections of the Y high-speed railway line and at the same time our most advanced project
The strengthening of the foundations of the Łódź Cultural Centre (ŁDK), on the western side of the Łódź Fabryczna railway station, has been underway since last September and is being carried out by Keller Polska. The cost of this contract is just over PLN 93 million net. In addition the contractor is carrying out, among other things, the construction of a cable duct (underground technical infrastructure needed to supply a traction substation for the railway line), the reconstruction of heat, water and teletechnical connections and the construction of an electrical power grid. The works are being supervised by DTŚ as contract engineer.
The launching chamber, and at the same time the exit of the tunnel to the surface, will be built near the Retkinia housing estate – south-west of Łódź Kaliska. This is where work will begin in the coming weeks. On the other hand, work on the excavation chamber for the automated tunnelling shield (TBM) will begin after completion of the strengthening of the ŁDK foundations. The chamber will be built on the western side of the Łódź Fabryczna station. Last December, CPK signed a nearly PLN 147 million net contract with Budimex for this task.
At the high-speed rail tunnel in Łódź, work is progressing consistently and on schedule. The technologies we are using will minimise the overall impact of construction on residents
The underground construction will be more than 4 km long and approximately 14 m in diameter. It will also be the largest underground railway tunnel to date in Poland, constructed using the automatic TBM method.
The CPK project includes, among others, the construction of a high-speed railway line from Warsaw to Łódź, Wrocław and Poznań, of which the tunnel in Łódź is an important part, the expansion of the A2 motorway and, finally, the construction of the airport itself. Thanks to these investments, journeys from Łódź to Poland’s largest cities will be more frequent and faster, e.g. to Warsaw in 45 minutes (today it takes twice as long), to Wrocław and Poznań in 1 hour 10 minutes (instead of the current 3 hours), and to CPK in just half an hour. In total, CPK investments for the Łódź region represent the construction of 219 km of new railway lines to be built by the CPK company and the modernisation of 305 km of existing rail routes to be carried out by PKP PLK.
An integral part of the CPK investment are tasks for which the General Directorate for National Roads and Motorways is the investor. The assumptions are that together with the opening of the Airport, the A2 motorway will already be expanded from its junction with the A1 motorway to the border of Warsaw.
