The Landrücken Tunnel is a

railway Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport that transfers passengers and goods on wheeled vehicles running on rails, which are incorporated in tracks. In contrast to road transport, where the vehicles run on a pre ...

tunnel A tunnel is an underground passageway, dug through surrounding soil, earth or rock, and enclosed except for the entrance and exit, commonly at each end. A pipeline is not a tunnel, though some recent tunnels have used immersed tube cons ...

on the Hanover-Würzburg high-speed rail line. With a length of it is the longest

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

Geography

The tunnel is in east

Hesse Hesse (, , ) or Hessia (, ; german: Hessen ), officially the State of Hessen (german: links=no, Land Hessen), is a States of Germany, state in Germany. Its capital city is Wiesbaden, and the largest urban area is Frankfurt. Two other major histor ...

n between the

stations Station may refer to: Agriculture * Station (Australian agriculture), a large Australian landholding used for livestock production * Station (New Zealand agriculture), a large New Zealand farm used for grazing by sheep and cattle ** Cattle statio ...

Fulda Fulda () (historically in English called Fuld) is a town in Hesse, Germany; it is located on the river Fulda and is the administrative seat of the Fulda district (''Kreis''). In 1990, the town hosted the 30th Hessentag state festival. History ...

and

Würzburg Würzburg (; Main-Franconian: ) is a city in the region of Franconia in the north of the German state of Bavaria. Würzburg is the administrative seat of the ''Regierungsbezirk'' Lower Franconia. It spans the banks of the Main River. Würzburg is ...

. Between the northern tunnel entrance of Kalbach (50° 24′ 22″N, 9° 39′3″E) and the southern end at Mottgers (50° 18′35″N, 9° 39′47″E) it crosses the Landrücken range which forms the Rhein-Weser

drainage divide A drainage divide, water divide, ridgeline, watershed, water parting or height of land is elevated terrain that separates neighboring drainage basins. On rugged land, the divide lies along topographical ridges, and may be in the form of a singl ...

dividing the river basins of the

and

Main Main may refer to: Geography * Main River (disambiguation) **Most commonly the Main (river) in Germany * Main, Iran, a village in Fars Province *"Spanish Main", the Caribbean coasts of mainland Spanish territories in the 16th and 17th centuries ...

Description of tunnel

The

double-track A double-track railway usually involves running one track in each direction, compared to a single-track railway where trains in both directions share the same track. Overview In the earliest days of railways in the United Kingdom, most li ...

Landrücken Tunnel was built using the

New Austrian Tunnelling method The New Austrian tunneling method (NATM), also known as the sequential excavation method (SEM) or sprayed concrete lining method (SCL), is a method of modern tunnel design and construction employing sophisticated monitoring to optimize various wa ...

working from the north

portal Portal often refers to: * Portal (architecture), an opening in a wall of a building, gate or fortification, or the extremities (ends) of a tunnel Portal may also refer to: Arts and entertainment Gaming * ''Portal'' (series), two video games ...

, known as "Baulos Nord" and two side accesses ("Baulos Mitte" and "Baulos Süd"). In addition, three shafts were established for ventilation during tunnel boring. The tunnel opened in 1988 with a total tunnel

cross section Cross section may refer to: * Cross section (geometry) ** Cross-sectional views in architecture & engineering 3D *Cross section (geology) * Cross section (electronics) * Radar cross section, measure of detectability * Cross section (physics) **Abs ...

of and a maximum 1.25%

gradient In vector calculus, the gradient of a scalar-valued differentiable function of several variables is the vector field (or vector-valued function) \nabla f whose value at a point p is the "direction and rate of fastest increase". If the gradi ...

. It surpassed the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Tunnel near

Cochem Cochem is the seat of and the biggest town in the Cochem-Zell district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. With just over 5,000 inhabitants, Cochem falls just behind Kusel, in the Kusel district, as Germany's second smallest district seat. Since 7 J ...

as the longest railway tunnel in Germany. Outside the north portal of the tunnel, at 380m

altitude Altitude or height (also sometimes known as depth) is a distance measurement, usually in the vertical or "up" direction, between a reference datum and a point or object. The exact definition and reference datum varies according to the context ...

is the

summit A summit is a point on a surface that is higher in elevation than all points immediately adjacent to it. The topography, topographic terms acme, apex, peak (mountain peak), and zenith are synonymous. The term (mountain top) is generally used ...

of the Hanover-Würzburg high-speed rail line.

Technical data

* length: * year of opening: 1988 * tracks: two * track separation: * tunnel

area: * steepest gradient: 1.25% * speed limit: * equipment: Electrified,

LZB Linienzugbeeinflussung (or LZB) is a cab signalling and train protection system used on selected Deutsche Bundesbahn, German and Austrian Federal Railways, Austrian railway lines as well as on the AVE and some commuter rail lines in Rail transpo ...

signalling In signal processing, a signal is a function that conveys information about a phenomenon. Any quantity that can vary over space or time can be used as a signal to share messages between observers. The ''IEEE Transactions on Signal Processing'' ...

, "Zugfunk"

radio Radio is the technology of signaling and communicating using radio waves. Radio waves are electromagnetic waves of frequency between 30 hertz (Hz) and 300 gigahertz (GHz). They are generated by an electronic device called a transmit ...

GSM-R GSM-R, Global System for Mobile Communications – Railway or GSM-Railway is an international wireless communications standard for railway communication and applications. A sub-system of European Rail Traffic Management System (ERTMS), it is use ...

, BOS-Funk, C-Netz (from 1992 to 2000), GSM900/1800 (

T-mobile T-Mobile is the brand name used by some of the mobile communications subsidiaries of the German telecommunications company Deutsche Telekom AG in the Czech Republic (T-Mobile Czech Republic), Poland (T-Mobile Polska), the United States (T-Mobile ...

Vodafone Vodafone Group Public limited company, plc () is a British Multinational corporation, multinational Telephone company, telecommunications company. Its registered office and Headquarters, global headquarters are in Newbury, Berkshire, England. It ...

and Eplus since the middle of 2006),

FM radio FM broadcasting is a method of radio broadcasting using frequency modulation (FM). Invented in 1933 by American engineer Edwin Armstrong, wide-band FM is used worldwide to provide high fidelity sound over broadcast radio. FM broadcasting is cap ...

, wind direction measuring system, two emergency exits)

Accidents

On April 26, 2008, ICE train 885 was on its way from

Hamburg (male), (female) en, Hamburger(s), Hamburgian(s) , timezone1 = Central (CET) , utc_offset1 = +1 , timezone1_DST = Central (CEST) , utc_offset1_DST = +2 , postal ...

Munich Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the States of Germany, German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the List of cities in Germany by popu ...

with 170 people on board. At 9:05pm, it collided with a herd of sheep that had strayed into the tunnel. The train derailed at inside the tunnel. 25 people were injured, 12 of the 14 cars were derailed.News in the
Online paper of Fuldaer Zeitung
'.

Distelrasen-Tunnel

A few kilometers west of the Landrücken Tunnel, the Distelrasen-Tunnel built in 1914, near

Schlüchtern Schlüchtern is a town in the Main-Kinzig district, in Hessen, Germany. It is located on the river Kinzig, approximately 30 km southwest of Fulda. Schlüchtern has a population close to 16,000. Location Schlüchtern is located in the '' Ber ...

-Elm on the Kinzig Valley Railway, was the first railway to traverse the Landrücken drainage divide.

References

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Landrucken Tunnel Buildings and structures in Hesse High-speed rail in Germany Railway tunnels in Germany Transport in Hesse Tunnels completed in 1988 East Hesse Hanover–Würzburg high-speed railway