Landrücken Tunnel

The Landrücken Tunnel is a railway tunnel on the Hanover-Würzburg high-speed rail line. With a length of it is the longest tunnel in Germany.

Geography

The tunnel is in east Hessen between the stations of Fulda and Würzburg. Between the northern tunnel entrance of Kalbach and the southern end at Mottgers it crosses the Landrücken range which forms the Rhein-Weser drainage divide dividing the river basins of the Fulda and Main.

Description of tunnel

The double-track Landrücken Tunnel was built using the New Austrian Tunnelling method working from the north portal, known as "Baulos Nord" and two side accesses. In addition, three shafts were established for ventilation during tunnel boring.
The tunnel opened in 1988 with a total tunnel cross section of and a maximum 1.25% gradient. It surpassed the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Tunnel near Cochem as the longest railway tunnel in Germany.
Outside the north portal of the tunnel, at 380m altitude is the summit of the Hanover-Würzburg high-speed rail line.

Technical data

track separation:
tunnel cross section area:
steepest gradient: 1.25%
equipment: Electrified, LZB signalling, "Zugfunk" radio, GSM-R, BOS-Funk, C-Netz, GSM900/1800

Accidents

On April 26, 2008, ICE train 885 was on its way from Hamburg to Munich with 170 people on board. At 9:05pm, it collided with a herd of sheep that had strayed into the tunnel. The train derailed at inside the tunnel. 25 people were injured and 12 of the 14 cars were derailed.

Distelrasen-Tunnel

A few kilometers west of the Landrücken Tunnel, the Distelrasen-Tunnel built in 1914, near Schlüchtern-Elm on the Kinzig Valley Railway, was the first railway to traverse the Landrücken drainage divide.