INFRASTRUCTURE manager Italian Rail Network (RFI) has awarded a consortium led by Webuild a contract worth €1.6bn to undertake civil works on the 22.2km Paola - Cosenza section of the high-speed line now under construction between Salerno and Reggio Calabria in southern Italy.
Webuild holds a 60% stake in the consortium, which also includes Ghella, Pizzarotti and SELI, the Webuild subsidiary which specialises in tunnelling. An estimated 1500 people will be employed on the project, including third-party suppliers.
Nearly all of the Paola - Cosenza section will run underground. Major structures include the 15km Santomarco Tunnel, which will require the deployment of four tunnel boring machines (TBM) to excavate the twin single-track bores. The new tunnel will be located 100m from an existing single-track tunnel, which will be decommissioned once work is completed.
Other civil works include a total of nine railway bridges and two viaducts, one a 350m-long crossing over the A2 motorway and the second a 205m-long structure across the Settimo stream. A new station will be built at Montalto Uffugo, also serving the university campus at Rende.
In 2023 RFI awarded the Xenia Consortium of Webuild, Pizzarotti, Ghella and Tunnel Pro a €2.8bn contract for Lot 1A of the Salerno - Reggio Calabria project, comprising civil works on the 35km Battipaglia - Romagnano section.
This section includes the 3km Saginara Tunnel, where what Webuild describes as the largest TBM in Europe was launched earlier this year. The TBM is 130m long, weighs 4000 tonnes and is equipped with a 13.5m-diameter cutter head.
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