Metro tunnels under Turin

One of the Italian Government's priorities for modernising infrastructure is the provision of efficient mass transit systems for the country's main cities, especially with regard to connections and feeders to the main crosscountry rail termini. One of the latest examples of these cities is Turin where construction in now starting on the first stage of Line 1 with a scheduled start-up for train operations of November 2005. The project is valued at Lire 700bn (US$ 31 million). The section between Collegno and Torino Porta Nuova (with a control centre beyond) of Line 1 of the Metropolitana Automatica VAL di Torino, to give the new system its full name, is over 9.6km long and runs underground entirely. Apart from the control centre in the terminus station Fermi, and the link with the workshop depot which will be built by cut-cover or on the surface, the entire line will be in single bored, twin-track tunnel excavated using three TBMs. The line includes 15 stations of which ten are standard stations designed with reference to a basic model and two are stations of special design to link with State Railway stations. All will be built by cut and cover.