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The cost of tunnels when actually built is also high than in some other places, which is even more remarkable given DB's reluctance to build bi-tube rather than two-track single tube tunnels, and its criminal cost saving on escape shafts and cross-connections. Dealing with geological challenges is another thing ().
City-crossing tunnels with subterranean platforms below the old main station for long-distance and high-speed trains aren't something unprecedented, either: Antwerp already has one, more are in construction in Madrid, Barcelona, Bologna, Firenze. AFAIK none of them cost nearly as much as Stuttgart 21. Such a project needs good organisation -- which the Stuttgart 21 project doesn't have at all.
Maybe DB needs foreign expertise?
As a final note: there is another project of a new through station that seems more a real estate project in disguise, though at least without subterranean platforms: Vienna's new central station. That one is constructed full-throttle. But it will be a funny 'central station', without a subway link... *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
Unfortunately, there are the same marketing slogans (at least as transmitted by the know-nothing media (German tagesschau)): "removing the dead end", "Center of Europe", "Bahnhofs-City", "Paris-Bratislava", "Danzig-Adria", and as a special twist "Middle Germany - Athens - Black Sea". Who are those people kidding? Schengen is toast!
I also note that like Wendlingen-Ulm, a project adjacent to Vienna's new main station is the Lainzer and Wienerwald tunnel complex, over 27 km of tunnels that are part of TEN-17 which IMO make eminent sense. *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
...and here is the Stuttgart 21 real estate project:
Someone is gonna get rich, and it's neither taxpayers, nor DB... *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
Although DB gets off pretty well here. They pay almost nothing, less than they would for a simple renovation/modernization. DB Projektbau GmbH is paid handsomely for their expert planning and execution. Schengen is toast!
Dealing with geological challenges is another thing ().
...where DB's planners insist on outdated and supposedly cheap solutions that end up expensive when problems arise. Tunnels can be built in difficult geology: after all, Stuttgart itself already has the S-Bahn (rapid transit) tunnel and a light metro with several tunnels. But DB's planners didn't exactly shine in this in recent times. In addition to the tunnel with cave-crossing viaduct on the Nuremberg-Ingolstadt line, there is the Siegauen-Tunnel on the Cologne-Frankfurt high-speed line. DB first didn't want to build this line, then opted to build it (across similar difficult geology as in Stuttgart) with a supposedly cheaper excavating method, rather than some advanced alternative like a pressure-shielded tunnel boring machine. Of course the worst happened. *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
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