The new Sepolia railway tunnel in Athens will be ready by the end of 2023

At the end of 2023, the new quadruple railway corridor from Athens to the area of 3 Gefyres will be ready, according to the modified schedule, and from the beginning of 2024 it will be able to operate in its entirety.

The project that has been established as the Railway Tunnel of Sepolia, is an ambitious project which will free the degraded areas of Athens from the division that currently exists due to the lines.

At the same time, it will increase the level of safety and speed of the railway routes that will be able to thicken their routes more.

The reasons the project went back

The project was signed on November 15, 2018 with an initial horizon of 52 months but its completion was quickly extended from 2022 to November 14, 2023 due to delays that mainly had to do with two factors.

The first is that the descent line (to the Central Railway Station of Athens) was delivered by OSE late in August 2019 due to contractual obligations to the railway companies. But the line is necessary to start the construction of the quadruple line.

This is because under this line the first two underground lines will be built. Then, once their construction is completed, it will be put into circulation and the ascent line will be blocked to build the other half of the tunnel, which will also include two other lines.

In 2022 the first two lines in operation

In fact, in the 2.36 km long project, a 1.91 km twin tunnel will be created, where two parallel lines will operate for each direction, for commercial, interurban and suburban trains. According to sources close to the issue, in 2022 it is estimated that the first two underground lines will be able to be reopened to traffic restoring traffic.

The second reason for the delay is that in April 2020 the initial approval of environmental conditions of the project regarding the maximum permissible noise and vibration limits of railway projects was amended.

To make this possible, the contractor consortium (INTRAKAT-Railway Works) replaced the original excavation equipment with a new “silent” one, which caused an expected time delay.

The pandemic has also contributed to the delay in the works due to the measures implemented since last March to limit the spread of covid-19.

Now, the big bet is that the work can proceed without further delays and an additional contract will be signed, that will cover the requirements created due to these delays. At this time, the works for the barrier walls have started and from the new year, according to estimates by railway executives, the project will be able to proceed without further difficulties.