January 31, 2024, Schwanau, Germany On behalf of Wiener Linien, the operator of the Vienna subway, a joint venture between STRABAG and PORR is building the extension of subway line 2 from Vienna City Hall to the south. The Austrian tunnel construction specialists ordered an EPB Shield (Earth Pressure Balance Shield) tunnel boring machine from Herrenknecht for this project. Ralph Lickert, Project Manager at Herrenknecht, emphasizes: "The Herrenknecht EPB Shield is the optimal machine type for the predominantly clayey geology that we expect according to the preliminary investigations."

The Herrenknecht EPB Shield for the Austrian capital has a diameter of 6,840 millimetres, a length of around 120 meters and weighs a total of around 1,200 tons. The drive will start at the future Matzleinsdorfer Platz station, from where the machine will drive 2.1 kilometers of tunnel northwards to below Augustinplatz. The machine will then be pulled back through the bored tunnel, which is lined with precast concrete segments, in order to drive the parallel tube from Matzleinsdorfer Platz. 

With the expansion of the metro network, the city of Vienna is responding to a rising population. More than two million people are expected to live in the capital by 2030. According to the city, the investment in the line extensions will create and secure around 30,000 jobs. 

Construction companies worldwide have already bored over 3,000 kilometers of tunnels for high-performance metro systems in more than 1,300 projects using Herrenknecht's mechanized tunnelling technology. Current flagship projects include the major Grand Paris Express and Sydney Metro projects with 22 and 15 Herrenknecht machines respectively.

PROJECT DATA VIENNA METRO LINE 2

• Client: Wiener Linien
• Contractors: Arge U2 17-21 Strabag AG Porr Bau GmbH
• Application: Metro
• Drive length: 2 x 2,100m

MACHINE DATA

• Machine type: EPB Shield
• Diameter: 6,840mm
• Cutterhead drive power: 1,920kW
• Torque (max.): 15,028kNm