The very complex construction work at the railway junction includes the reconstruction of urban and mainline railway tracks and encompass civil engineering, cable-foundation engineering, underground construction as well as track-construction and noise-abatement measures. All activities have to be carried out at the same time while the services are shut down.The noise-abatement team at HERING is erecting two types of noise barriers within the scope of the project. On the one hand, wood-and-concrete walls with a height of up to six metres above the top edge of the rails that are being placed on appropriately deep driven piles. And, on the other, aluminium walls from the Noise Phalanx system. A total of approximately 17,000 square metres of noise barrier will have been installed on completion.
The construction project has entered the home straight – the final sprint saw two genuine milestones being realised in July, i.e. the installation of torsion beams weighing tonnes at the Laakegraben railway overpasses and Freischütz tunnels from which the noise-abatement elements can be suspended. The huge beams, into which the noise-abatement wall elements will subsequently be hung are 22 and 19 metres long respectively and each of them weighs around 30 tonnes (including the supporting structure). Two foundation points were created on each side of the beams; the foundations were realised with the help of a pile driver ram and crane. It took around six hours to install each of these heavyweights.
