Fehmarn start for Germany

The Fehmarn Belt Fixed Link will cut journey times between Copenhagen and Hamburg.
By David Arminas December 8, 2021 Read time: 1 min
Cars will take an estimated 10 minutes and trains seven minutes to go through the 18km tunnel (image courtesy Femern A/S)

Construction of the €7 billion (US$8.21 billion) Baltic Sea tunnel has begun on the German side of mega-project that will connect the Danish capital Copenhagen and Hamburg.

The tunnel will run between Lolland, Denmark’s fourth largest island, and the German island of Fehmarn off the eastern coast of Germany’s Schleswig-Holstein state.

The Fehmarn Belt Fixed Link will drastically cut road and rail train journey times between the two cities when it is completed in 2029. Government and construction officials met near the village of Puttgarden on Fehmarn for a sod-turning ceremony. Work has already started on the Danish side, on the island of Lolland.

Danish firm Femern A/S, in charge of the project, says it will be the world's longest road and rail tunnel. Cars will take an estimated 10 minutes and trains seven minutes to go through the 18km tunnel.

The tunnel will consist of 79 standard 217m-long elements around 10m high with two highway tubes, one emergency tube and two rail tubes. There will be 10 service elements, each 85.7m-long but both wider and higher and with a subfloor to house technical and servicing equipment. The deepest section of the Fehmarn Belt Trench, into which the tunnel elements will be laid, will be 35m.

Highway & Network Management

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Costs revised for Denmark’s proposed Kattegat Bridge
    May 9, 2016
    A proposed bridge across the Kattegat Sea in northern Europe would be cheaper for the Danish government than previously expected, according to an engineering report. The bridge between Denmark’s Jutland and Zealand islands would need around €2.02 billion in government subsidies, noted the report from Danish engineering consultancy Rambøll. A previous report from the Ministry of Transport concluded that subsidies would have to be around €6.85 billion and need to be financed by loans. This caused the mi
    Read More
  • Construction of Fehmarn Belt Link could start in 2019
    February 27, 2018
    Construction of a Fehmarn Belt Link could start a year from now – more than a year ahead of schedule, according to Danish media reports. The timing was put forward by Holger Schou Rasmussen, chairman of Femernbælt Development, and Kristian Pihl Lorenzen, the Liberal Party spokesman for traffic issues. They reportedly said that a pending environmental court case in Germany that has stalled approval by German authorities won’t hold up construction of the 18km crossing as much as had been feared. As late as
    Read More
  • Progress for planned Denmark-Germany immersed tunnel
    October 30, 2013
    A Danish company, Femern, is submitting documents for the Fehmarn Belt Fixed Link, an immersed tunnel that will connect Germany with Denmark. The project is expected to cost in the order of €5.5 billion to construct. An 18km immersed tunnel will link the islands of Fehmarn and Lolland. Fehmarn Island is already connected with Northern Germany’s mainland by a bridge, while Lolland is already connected by a tunnel and bridges with Zealand, a link that runs via the island of Falster
    Read More
  • Fehmarnbelt hearings to start
    September 24, 2020
    The Danish-German project has come under financial and environmental criticism.
    Read More

Highlighted Content