New Baikal Tunnel opens on BAM
The new Baikal tunnel’s western portal is in the Irkutsk region, and the eastern one is in the Republic of Buryatia. It also links the Siberian and Far Eastern Federal Districts.
Construction and installation works got underway in 2014. The builders drilled a tunnel 6682 m long through the mountains of the Baikal ridge. The project employed 1500 workers and 100+ units of mining equipment, road construction machines and vehicles. The tunnel has a depth of up to 300 m, and diameter 8.3 m (inside the lining; 10.2 m incl. the lining).
The new tunnel was drilled 35 m from the old one. Even during construction works, the traffic via the existing tunnel went on.
After the commissioning of the new Baikalsky tunnel and the second track on the Delbichinda – Daban section, its capacity will increase from 17 to 85 pairs of trains per day.