Tunnel inspection: This is what Stuttgart 21 looks like now

This is what Stuttgart 21 looks like now

By DYRK SCHERFF (lyrics) and ILKAY KARAKURT (photos)

December 1, 2022 · The underground railway project Stuttgart 21 is nearing completion.

Time to look underground.

We can do everything.

Except High German.

With this slogan, Baden-Württemberg advertised itself with a smile for years.

"We can do everything.

Out of the station" could be the motto of the scandal project Stuttgart 21.

But now, after years of delays, cost increases running into billions and riots between opponents and the police, there is finally good news: the first part of Stuttgart 21 is going into operation.

The 60-kilometer new line from Wendlingen near Stuttgart to Ulm will open in two weeks after ten years of construction.

The platform edges are clearly visible on the left and right, between them lie the concrete troughs into which the tracks will be laid from 2024.

The station has a total of four platforms with eight tracks.

Daylight comes down through 28 chalice supports.

The tower of the previous main station towers above the new underground station.

Daylight streams into the large chalice supports (foreground).

The construction of such a support takes up to four months.

The travel time will then be reduced by 14 to 42 minutes.

ICE will race along the route at 250 kilometers per hour instead of lazing around at 80.

Regional connections are also accelerated.

The small community of Merklingen on the Swabian Alb receives a rail connection for the first time.

However, no journeys have been registered for freight trains so far, although the route was also built for this purpose.

It cost four billion euros, twice as much as originally planned.

The new through station is rotated 90 degrees to the old terminal station with its famous tower.

The characteristic supports look like white dots when viewed from above.

The castle garden on the right was the center of protests against the project in 2010.

Where there are still tracks today (upper half of the picture), a new district will later develop.

Photo: Arnim Kilgus

Out of the air.

The new through station is rotated 90 degrees to the old terminal station with its famous tower.

The characteristic supports look like white dots when viewed from above.

The castle garden on the right was the center of protests against the project in 2010.

Where there are still tracks today (upper half of the picture), a new district will later develop.

Photo: Arnim Kilgus

Watch the tunnel boring machine at work.

FAZ.NET

The improvements are really noticeable with the second part of the construction project, the actual Stuttgart 21 with the new underground main station and another 61 kilometers of tunnel.

The travel time will then drop by another 15 minutes, and Ulm will effectively become a suburb of Stuttgart.

This second part should be finished by the end of 2025.

But you can already see a lot of the future buildings today.

The FAS took an exclusive look at them.

The old building from 1922, designed by Paul Bonatz, is being converted.

In the future it will serve as an access building for the new underground main station, which is connected to the right side of the picture.

All the tunnels in the Stuttgart basin have been drilled, and some of the tracks are already in place.

The future main station with its characteristic chalice supports is clearly visible.

Only the tunnel for the junction at the airport on top of the Fildern, where another train station is being built, will continue to be dug until mid-2023.

It will not fully open until 2027.

Then the airport can also be reached more quickly from many directions.

The schedule seems realistic now that the most complicated structures are complete.

Unless a lack of material leads to delays.

There are bottlenecks on the market, especially for steel, wood, plastic for cables and pipes and for spare parts for the devices, which have not yet affected Stuttgart 21.

And what about the costs?

“We are optimistic that the currently planned EUR 9.2 billion will remain.

We have placed the most important orders, some with a fixed price.

We also have a financial buffer of 640 million euros, which we will not need as of today," says the managing director of the project company, Olaf Drescher.

However, some of the contracts also provide for price escalation clauses.

In these cases, the construction companies can pass on higher prices to the railways.

In 1995, the framework agreement provided for costs of 2.6 billion euros at the prices of the time.

For years, the state, the railways and the federal government have been arguing in court about who will bear the additional costs.

61 kilometers of tubes have been drilled in the Stuttgart basin, half of which are already equipped with tracks.

The overhead line is still missing here.

The left temporary track is used for material transport and is still being dismantled.

It connects the tunnel below the Rosenstein Park at the Natural History Museum (top left) with the existing railway line in Bad Cannstatt.

Building an underground station instead of the previous terminus is an idea that won out in an architectural competition almost exactly 25 years ago.

The then young Christoph Ingenhoven won, and at first most were enthusiastic.

Because Stuttgart 21 (a project for the 21st century, not for an opening in 2021) is a huge gain for the city in the long term, which has been increasingly forgotten in the public debate.

Due to the lowering of the station and the new tunnel sections, a huge railway site is no longer needed on the surface, on which a new city quarter is to be built in the future.

For the state capital, this is the only chance to acquire new areas of any significant size in the narrow basin.

The 2.2-kilometer airport tunnel, which branches off the main route, will not be fully completed until 2027.

A heavy-duty crane lowers construction machinery and material above the future airport train station.

Stuttgart 21 is therefore primarily an urban development project and less a railway project.

It has never been an affair of the heart for Deutsche Bahn, they would have preferred to invest the billions somewhere else.

Shortly after the start of construction in 2010, protests increased, first against the demolition of the side wings of the previous main station, then against the felling of trees in the neighboring palace garden.

At times, tens of thousands of people took to the streets during Monday demonstrations.

The clashes escalated in September 2010 when the police used water cannons against demonstrators, injuring more than a hundred of them, some seriously.

At the airport, 500 meters still have to be drilled by mid-2023.

Then all the tunnels of Stuttgart 21, in the valley basin and up at the airport, will be finished.

Work is done 24 hours a day in several shifts.

After drilling, sealing, steel skeleton and concreting follow.

The patron saint of miners also keeps watch in the tunnels of Stuttgart 21.

A lengthy arbitration process led by former CDU General Secretary Heiner Geißler followed.

It was also questioned whether the new station is big enough to handle all the planned trains.

Adjustments were agreed, costs continued to rise.

A referendum approved the project, after which resistance ebbed away.

As a result, the protected Russia beetle delayed the work.

On December 11, the continuation of Stuttgart 21 is opened, the new line from Wendlingen near Stuttgart to Ulm.

The architectural highlight is the Filstal Bridge.

In the future, ICE trains will race across the Swabian Alb at 250 kilometers per hour, reducing the travel time from Stuttgart to Ulm by 14 minutes to 42 minutes.

With the opening of Stuttgart 21 at the end of 2025, it will only be around 30 minutes.

Photo: Picture Alliance

Now the opening phase is approaching.

It will not end when the airport connection goes into operation in 2027.

The Gäubahn from the direction of Singen is to be connected in 2032 with an eleven-kilometer tunnel for a further billion euros.

And the first houses in the new district will not be visible until after 2030.

New ICE route The Swabian Alb is no longer in the way

Stuttgart 21 Anything but “cheap”