Tunnel, island and bridge

The Eresund Fixed Link consists of a two-track railway and four-lane motorway connecting Copenhagen and Malmu. With completion anticipated in mid-2000, the link consists of four major elements. From west to east, these are:

· An artificial peninsula at Kastrup, next to Copenhagen Airport on the Danish coast, extending about 430 metres from a coast line. The new airport station has been constructed here. It has been designed to bring trains as close as possible to the air terminal.

· A 4 km tunnel, including 3, 150-metre-long immersed tunnel, from Kastrup to an artificial island. The immersed tube tunnel is the longest for both road and rail traffic in the world. Each rail track will have a separate tunnel, and road traffic will also have a tunnel for traffic in each direction, with a central gallery for emergency evacuation and installations. The two railway tunnel bores will be linked by doors at 88-metre intervals. If an accident occurs in one tunnel bore, the other can be used for evacuation and rescue. Each doorway will be provided with an emergency panel with telephone, fire alarm and fire extinguisher. The immersed tunnel is made up of 176-metre-long, 57, 000-tone concrete segments which were cast in Copenhagen harbour and sunk in a dredged trench. The last segment was placed in position in January 1999, and the final casting between tunnel elements was completed in March 1999. A tunnel was chosen instead of a bridge for this section of the crossing because of the proximity of the airport.

· An artificial island, known as Peberholm. Like the peninsula at Kastrup, this has been constructed from material dredged from the sea. Peberholm is 4, 055 metres long, and lies south of the island of Saltholm.

· A 7·8 km bridge, made up of a main, high bridge and two approach bridges, between the island and Lernacken on the coast of Sweden.

The bridge’s two-level superstructure is fabricated from steel and concrete. The steel girder supports the upper deck, carrying the motorway, and the lower deck for the railway. The railway tracks will be in a concrete trough on the approach bridges, and on a steel deck on the main bridge. The main bridge will have the longest cable-stayed main span in the world for both road and rail traffic.

A 560-metre-long concrete viaduct on Peberholm will divert the motorway traffic from alongside the railway to its position above the railway on the bridge. The bridge will have emergency stairs from the railway deck to the road deck at about 650-metre intervals. The rail deck also has a walkway on both sides of the tracks, so train passengers will be able to escape from a derailed or burning train to the road deck using the walkway and stairs.