On the night of 7 October, in less than two hours, the 5.85 ton bow-string bridge made its way across one of Luxembourg’s busiest motorways to its new home 5 metres above the A3.
The structure, one of the largest of its kind in Europe, will form one of the key centrepieces to the new railway line linking Luxembourg City and Bettembourg, which will see eight structures in total along the new route. But commuters eagerly awaiting the opening of the new line, on one of the country’s busiest railway networks, will have to exercise a little more patience.
Passengers will have to wait at least three years before the first trains begin to run on the new route. Although the 7 kilometre stretch is gradually taking form in the Luxembourgish countryside, CFL estimates that technical and commercial operations will only begin from December 2026.
The acquisition of the 300 plots of land required for the construction wasn’t completed until June 2021, with Minister of Mobility François Bausch warning of delays to the work schedule in early 2022. Part of the reason behind the delay was CFL’s strategic decision to integrate the project into their new national operating concept, but the project has also encountered obstacles such as the construction of an unplanned wildlife passage, and material shortages exacerbated by the pandemic.
The first rails for the new track will be laid once the overhead lines have been completed, according to CFL, who estimate this will be done by the end of 2025, or early 2026.
Now that the new bridge has been moved, the project’s next steps include the sealing of the bridge’s final supports, then the deck itself will be concreted. The reinforcement and concreting of the bridge deck will serve as the basis for the installation of the two future railway lines which will span the A3 motorway. Early next year, the prefabrication platform alongside the A3, where the bridge previously sat during its construction period from October 2019, will be refurbished and returned to nature.
The major works on the Luxembourg-Bettembourg line should allow for increased capacity for both passenger and freight trains, CFL stated in their 2021 annual report, published in June.
The two additional tracks on this section of the railway will ease the strain on line 90, which links Luxembourg City with Thionville and Metz. This is the third busiest route in Luxembourg, behind line 60 (Luxembourg-Esch-Pétange-Rodange) and line 10 (Luxembourg-Troisvierges/Gouvy).
Official data from June counted some 2.93 million passengers on line 90 in 2021, while 4.59 million commuters used the line in 2019, before the pandemic reduced passenger figures.
In 2020, coronavirus impacted the number of CFL’s passengers, dropping by 42% compared to 2019 - CFL’s network saw just 14.5 million users in 2020, compared to 25 million the previous year.
