Herrenknecht delivers a tunnel boring machine with a diameter of 12.56 meters for the construction of a road tunnel under the Vistula in Gdansk. On Thursday, September 13, in the presence of the Gdansk City President, the customer OHL and the project owner GIK (Gdańskie Inwestycje Komunalne) accepted the machine at its production site in south German Schwanau.

Schwanau, Germany, September 13, 2012. With its freight and ferry terminal and the airport, Gdansk is a major transportation hub in Poland as well as for connections from Scandinavia to Central and Eastern Europe. Now the new ten kilometer long "Słowacki route" is to improve the transport infrastructure in the greater Gdansk area – for more than one million people living in the metropolitan area as well. It links the "Lech Wałęsa Airport" with the highway to Warsaw and with the Gdansk deepwater seaport, one of the most important transhipment centers in Eastern Europe.

The "Słowacki Route« will pass under the Vistula with a twin tube tunnel with a total length of 1.4 kilometers. The tunnel tubes will each accommodate two road lanes and will be connected by seven cross passages for escape routes. For the construction of this major tunnel the building contractor OHL ordered a Mixshield with a diameter of 12.56 meters from Herrenknecht. On Thursday, September 13, 2012, in the presence of Gdansk City President Paweł Adamowicz, the Chairman of the municipal investment company GIK (project owner), Ryszard Trykosko, Poland country manager Jose Manuel Rubio Roeder from OHL and representatives of the Polish press, the XL machine was accepted at the Schwanau plant.

According to Herrenknecht project manager Peter Griesbach, a challenging advance under the Vistula awaits the machine and the jobsite crews: "At certain points there will only be about eight meters above the machine to the bottom of the river." The machine will be sealed against penetrating groundwater or subsoil at pressures of up to four bar: between shield skin and lining segment with a triple wire brush seal and a quadruple sealing system on the drive. The equipment was designed in such a way that tunnelling can also be carried out on the steep four percent downward and upward gradients at the beginning and in the second half of the tunnel respectively. The Group subsidiary Herrenknecht Formwork produces the moulds in which the segments for lining the tunnel tubes are made. As a full-service provider in tunnel construction, at the customer's request Herrenknecht is also supplying additional equipment: the separation plant and the pumps for slurry circulation in the tunnel, the compressor station, the navigation system (VMT), the start-up construction and equipment for the material and personnel transport in the tunnel (MSD). Herrenknecht specialists will support the customer's personnel with service and equipment during on-site assembly of the machine and through to successful completion of the project.