OREANDA-NEWS. February 20, 2012. Construction workers on the combined road and rail route between Adler - Alpika-Service mountain resort celebrated meeting in middle of tunnel complex number 3 after drilling from both ends, reported the press-centre of RZD.

The event was attended by Vladimir Yakunin, President of Russian Railways, Dmitry Kozak, Russian Deputy Prime Minister, Jean-Claude Killy, Chairman of the Coordination Commission for the Preparation of the Olympic Winter Games in 2014, Dmitry Chernyshenko, President of the Sochi 2014 Organising Committee and other officials.

In accordance with the government’s programme to prepare the infrastructure for the Olympic Winter Games in Sochi, Russian Railways is responsible for constructing six facilities.

The biggest of these projects is the combined road and rail route between Adler - Alpika-Service mountain resort, which includes the construction of a second continuous railway line Sochi - Adler - Vesyoloe.

“This is the trickiest, most difficult construction project. I can say without exaggeration that the completion of the drilling and tunnel work is a historic event in domestic tunnel construction,” said Vladimir Yakunin.

According to Yakunin, 13.5 km of tunnels have been built through complex geological conditions in less than 3 years.

Engineering support for the tunnel construction was provided by an international working group with the participation of experts from the Swiss company Amberg Engineering Ltd., which compiled a monthly risk assessment report and recommendations for the tunnel work.

According to Amberg’s experts, the technical and project solutions to build the tunnels had no analogues in global tunnel construction.

The construction project for the combined route was declared the winner in the category “Best Project of the Year” at the annual competition of the International Tunnelling And Underground Space Association in Hong Kong on 1 December 2011.

To date, drilling work on all six tunnels has been completed on the Adler - Alpika-Service mountain resort line, including the following tunnel complexes:

No. 1 (including a road tunnel of 2,292 metres, a railway tunnel of 2,459 m and a service-evacuation tunnel of 2,330 m),

No. 2 (121 m railway tunnel)

No. 4 (449 m railway tunnel)

No. 5 (1,345 m road tunnel, 2,842 m railway tunnel, 2,828 m service-evacuation tunnel)

No. 6 (433 m railway tunnel).

By August 2012, the 48.5 km railway line between Adler - Alpika-Service mountain resort will be completed. The line is scheduled to enter service in April 2013.

Total construction cost will be about 240.1 billion roubles.