Seikan tunnel
| Seikan tunnel | |
|---|---|
 South portal of the Seikan tunnel
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| use | Railway tunnel |
| traffic connection | Hokkaidō Shinkansen / Kaikyō Line |
| place | Tsugaru Street |
| length | 53.85 km |
| Number of tubes | 3 (including one service and pilot tunnel each) |
| construction | |
| Client | Japanese railway construction company |
| building-costs | 700 billion yen (approx. € 4.3 billion) |
| start of building | April 22, 1964 |
| completion | March 10, 1985 |
| business | |
| operator | JR Hokkaidō / JR Freight |
| release | March 13, 1988 |
| map | |
 Location of the Seikan tunnel
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| Coordinates | |
| North portal | 41 ° 35 ′ 33 " N , 140 ° 19 ′ 20" E |
| South portal | 41 ° 10 ′ 40 " N , 140 ° 27 ′ 29" E |
Map with all coordinates: The Seikan Tunnel ( Japanese 青 函 ト ン ネ ル , Seikan tonneru ) is a 53.850 km long railway tunnel in Japan . Under the Tsugaru Strait it connects the main island of Honshū with the island of Hokkaidō to the north of it . The part of the tunnel lying under the sea has a length of 23.3 km. The name Seikan is not derived from a geographical object, but from the Sino-Japanese reading of the first Kanji character for Aomori ( 青森 ) and Hakodate ( 函館 ), the closest major cities on Honshū and Hokkaidō.
After Line 3 of the Chinese Guangzhou Metro , which has been expanded accordingly since 2010 , after the Gotthard Base Tunnel in Switzerland completed in 2016 and after Line 10 of the Beijing subway , which was expanded accordingly in 2012 , the Seikan Tunnel is currently (as of May 2020) the fourth longest Railroad tunnels of the earth ; After the Eurotunnel between France and Great Britain , it has the second longest submarine tunnel section. At the time of its opening on March 13, 1988, it was always at the top worldwide. Planning dates back to 1946, construction work began in 1964 and lasted almost 24 years. The construction cost was 700 billion yen , three and a half times the original estimate. Initially, only tracks were laid in Cape gauge (1067 mm) and the tunnel has since been part of the Kaikyō line . Since 2016, three - rail tracks have also made it possible to use standard-gauge high - speed trains on the Hokkaidō Shinkansen .
Location, course and geology
The south portal is located in the north of the main island of Honshū in Aomori Prefecture , about half a kilometer southwest of Hamana, which belongs to the municipality of Imabetsu . The Seikan tunnel initially runs northwest and passes several villages in the municipality of Sotogahama . Shortly before Cape Tappi , the northern tip of the Tsugaru Peninsula , it turns north and reaches the Tsugaru Strait . Theoretically, this strait would lie entirely within the twelve-mile zone , but the Japanese territorial waters are contractually limited to three nautical miles in this area . This means that a twelve-kilometer-long section of the tunnel lies beneath international waters . The tunnel itself is considered Japanese territory.
After about a quarter of the width of the strait, the tunnel makes a slight bend to the north-northwest. Approximately in the middle it reaches its deepest point, 100 m below the sea floor and 240 m below sea level. At Yoshioka, a village belonging to the Fukushima municipality in the sub-prefecture of Oshima , the tunnel occurs on the southernmost tip of Hokkaidō . In a curve with a wide radius, it gradually turns to the northeast, passing under the hilly landscape of the Oshima Peninsula . The north portal is about six kilometers west of the town of Shiriuchi .
Both headlands at the northern end of Honshūs, the Tsugaru Peninsula and the Shimokita Peninsula , are about the same distance from Hokkaidō. However, a route across the Shimokita Peninsula was ruled out for two reasons: firstly, the seabed there is around 60 meters deeper, and secondly, the geological conditions are less favorable. The submarine tunnel section leads through igneous rocks , pyroclastic deposits and sedimentary rocks from the Neogene . The area is folded into almost vertical synclines so that the youngest rock is found in the middle of the strait. On the side of Honshū andesite and basalt predominate, on the side of Hokkaidō mainly tuff and mudstone . The middle part is made up of the so-called Kuromatsunai Strata (sandy mudstone). Magmatic intrusions crushed the rock, which made tunneling work difficult.
Features of the tunnel
For several years after its opening, the Seikan Tunnel was both the longest tunnel in the world and the one with the longest submarine tunnel section. He has now lost both records to other buildings, so that he is now in second place in both categories. The Eurotunnel opened in 1994 under the English Channel between Coquelles in the north of France and Folkestone in the south-east of Great Britain is over three kilometers shorter, but has a 14 km longer submarine section. Line 3 of the Chinese Guangzhou Metro has had the longest tunnel in the world with its 60,400 m long main section since 2010 (as of May 2020).
The Seikan Tunnel forms the central part of the 87.8 km long Kaikyō line of the JR Hokkaidō railway company , which runs from Naka-Oguni in Aomori Prefecture to Kikonai on Hokkaidō and connects the cities of Aomori and Hakodate . Its special feature is the use of three- rail tracks , so that both freight trains on Cape gauge ( 1067 mm) and high-speed trains on standard gauge (1435 mm) can run. The maximum speed in the tunnel is 140 km / h, for Cape gauge trains 110 km / h. From the beginning, the tunnel was built according to the specifications for Shinkansen routes. It is 9.7 m wide and 7.85 m high in cross section. The tracks laid on a firm track have a maximum gradient of 12 ‰ and a minimum curve radius of 6500 m. Like the connecting lines, the tunnel is equipped with driver's cab signaling ( Automatic Train Control ) and electrified with 25 kV 50 Hz alternating voltage .
Security and technology
Every 600 to 1000 m, the main tunnel is connected by cross passages with the service tunnel, which can be used by maintenance and rescue vehicles. It has two emergency stations with platforms 480 m long. Cross passages every 40 m lead to the service tunnel, from where the passengers can reach a fire protection room with space for 500 people via a collecting room. Until 2013, the emergency stations were also served according to schedule and were staffed. Below Cape Tappi on the northern tip of the Tsugaru Peninsula is the Tappi-Kaitei station , which is connected to the surface by the Seikan Tunnel Tappi Shakō Line funicular . The Yoshioka-Kaitei station off the coast of Hokkaido is the lowest underground station in the world.
In the event of an incident, the ventilation system can be switched so that the escape routes remain free of smoke and gas. During normal operation, fresh air is blown into the pilot tunnel through inclined shafts and from there it is released outside via the main tunnel. In contrast, in the event of a fire, the fresh air between the inclined shaft and the service tunnel is diverted to the escape tunnel and from there to the main tunnel, whereupon the exhaust air can escape through a separate tunnel. There is a substation on both banks that supplies the tunnel with electrical energy. All railway and safety systems are monitored and controlled from a control center in Hakodate . An inspection channel runs between the tracks, in which a profile-free special vehicle drives and checks the rails. Sensors automatically monitor the earthquake activity and, due to the high water pressure, the vault structure as well. The daily amount of seepage water is 35,000 m³ and is continuously pumped to the surface by six pump systems. Should the pumps fail, the collection capacity of the drainage tunnels is sufficient for three days.
history
Planning and surveying
Since the late Taishō period there have been considerations to connect the four largest islands in Japan. The Japanese colonies of Korea and Manchukuo in northeast China were also to be connected by tunnels. In 1942, the shortest connection, the Kammon Tunnel, between the main island of Honshu and Kyushu was opened . A first concrete concept for a tunnel between Honshū and the island of Hokkaidō to the north was presented in 1939. At that time, a Seikan ferry crossing from Aomori via the Tsugaru Strait to Hakodate took more than four hours, and the ferry service was not possible on an average of around 80 days a year due to bad weather. Only a few months after the end of the Second World War , the first geological investigations began on land in April 1946, and from 1953 geologists began investigating the seabed from a fishing boat.
The efforts had previously been rather modest, so this changed with a disaster on September 26, 1954. The Tōya Maru , a railway ferry of the Japanese State Railways , capsized because of Typhoon Marie off Hakodate, killing 1153 people. In the same hurricane, four more ferries sank, resulting in a total of 1430 fatalities. As a result of this accident, the state railroad intensified its planning. Preparatory work on land began in March 1961 and the deep-sea submarine Kuroshio II thoroughly explored the seabed. On the basis of these investigations, the planners decided in favor of the western variant via the Tsugaru Peninsula , while they dropped the initially preferred eastern variant via the Shimokita Peninsula .
Construction work
One month after the newly founded Japanese Railway Construction Company under public law took over the project management on March 23, 1964, the groundbreaking ceremony for the pilot tunnel at its northern end took place on April 22 . Due to numerous delays in the construction of the accesses, the advance of the southern pilot gallery began on July 13, 1970. Finally, on September 28, 1971, the advance of the main tunnel was tackled from both sides. The client divided the main tube of the Seikan tunnel into nine construction lots , for which a total of 17 private companies were responsible. Four construction lots were under Honshū and three under Hokkaidō. The two remaining and at the same time longest lay under the seabed of Tsugaru Strait.
| Construction lot | region | location | length | Contractor |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hamana | Honshu | Mainland | 1,470 km | Fujita |
| Masukawa | 0.438 km | Zentaka | ||
| San'yōshi | 5.492 km | Tobishima, Sumitomo Mitsui | ||
| Horonai | 3,500 km | Sato Kogyo | ||
| Ryōhi | Seabed | 13,000 km | Kajima, Kumagai-gumi, Tekken | |
| Yoshioka | Hokkaidō | 14,700 km | Taisei, Hazama, Maeda | |
| Shirofu | Mainland | 3,900 km | Okumura, Penta-Ocean | |
| Mitake | 6.400 km | Ōbayashi-gumi , Shimizu | ||
| Reduce | 4.950 km | Nishimatsu, Asunaro Aoki |
The Japanese Railway Construction Company expected the tunnel to be operational after a decade of construction. Frequent water ingress, which was also significantly more severe than originally assumed, led to time-consuming delays. A tunnel boring machine was initially used under Tsugaru Street . This had to be removed after driving less than two kilometers because it got stuck in a soft rock layer and threatened to sink under its own weight. Therefore, the engineers decided to use the tried and tested New Austrian Tunneling Method instead . The tunneling was carried out by blasting, drilling or milling, while the resulting tunnel tube had to be secured with injections of a mixture of concrete and water glass . On October 4, 1978, all tunnel sections on Hokkaidō were drilled through, and on July 3, 1981 also those on Honshū. Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone detonated the last explosive charge in the pilot tunnel by remote control from his office in Tokyo on January 27, 1983 ; the live television broadcast of the event lasted several hours. The main tunnel was pierced on March 10, 1985.
Installation
The Seikan tunnel went into operation on March 13, 1988. By the breakthrough three years earlier, 34 workers had lost their lives in accidents and over 700 others were injured. The construction costs were ultimately more than 700 billion yen (approx. 4.3 billion euros) instead of the originally assumed 200 billion. During the construction of the tunnel, there had been repeated doubts about the necessity of the project, as the forecast made in 1971 turned out to be too optimistic. It assumed a steady increase in traffic volume until it peaked in 1985 and would then remain at this level. In fact, the peak was reached in 1978 and the volume of traffic then began to decline. This was due, on the one hand, to the slower economic growth after the first oil crisis in 1973, and, on the other hand, to progress in air traffic and cargo shipping.
At the time the tunnel opened, only two million passengers and three and a half million tons of freight were expected annually, about a fifth of the original estimate. At that time, air traffic between the metropolises of Tokyo and Sapporo already had a market share of 90%. A train journey on the entire route was neither time nor price competitive. While the train still needed nine hours, the journey by plane including transfer from and to the airports was feasible in three and a half hours. Deregulation and competition in Japanese domestic air traffic led to lower airfares, which made rail travel comparatively expensive.
Another problem was that the Seikan tunnel could not be used by Shinkansen trains because it was not yet connected to the standard-gauge high-speed network. The state railway had accumulated a huge mountain of debt, so that the completion of the Tōhoku-Shinkansen high-speed line was massively delayed (it only reached its northern end point Aomori in 2010). Interim uses were also discussed, including a. as an ammunition depot or tourist attraction. As a result of the privatization of the state railways in 1987, the newly created railway company JR Hokkaidō was responsible for passenger transport, while JR Freight took over freight transport. In 2007, 68 trains a day used the tunnel; 42 of these were freight trains (container block trains) and 26 passenger trains (regional traffic, express trains, sleeper trains).
Connection to the Shinkansen network
In April 2005, construction began on the first leg of the Hokkaidō-Shinkansen high-speed line from Shin-Aomori to Shin-Hakodate-Hokuto , which shares the Seikan tunnel and almost the entire Kaikyō line . From the beginning, the tunnel was planned and built with the clearance profile of the Shinkansen lines in order to avoid major modifications later. On March 14, 2014, the Tappi-Kaitei and Yoshioka-Kaitei tunnel stations were closed in order to prepare the tunnel for future use by high-speed trains; since then these have only been used as emergency exits.
Originally only tracks with the usual Japanese cape gauge of 1067 mm were laid in the tunnel, but the slab track was wide enough to allow three- rail tracks for standard-gauge Shinkansen trains to be installed. The electrical voltage of the contact lines was increased from 20 to 25 kV and the signaling systems were modernized. The first Shinkansen test drive took place on December 7, 2014; these could only be carried out during a short period of time at night so as not to obstruct other traffic. JR Hokkaidō began Shinkansen operations on March 26, 2016; four days earlier, the remaining regional and sleeper trains on the Kaikyō line had been set. The Hokkaidō Shinkansen is scheduled to reach Sapporo in 2031 .
A study published in 2005 on the maintenance of the submarine section concluded that “the structure of the tunnel is still in good condition”. The amount of seepage water has decreased over time, but increases immediately after a strong earthquake. The Asahi Shimbun newspaper reported in March 2018, on the occasion of the company's 30th anniversary, that JR Hokkaidō had spent around 30 billion yen since the 1999 fiscal year to fix leaks, replace rusted pipes and repair other wear and tear. It is planned to increase the maximum speed of the Shinkansen trains initially to 160 km / h and in a second step to 200 km / h. However, shared use with freight traffic still prevents them from driving through the tunnel at maximum speed, as the shock wave they emit would be too dangerous for freight trains. JR Hokkaidō and JR Freight are therefore working on the train-on-train concept, with which Cape-gauge freight wagons are to be transported through the tunnel on covered standard-gauge trolleys.
See also
Web links
- Seikan Tunnel Museum (English)
- Video: Driver's cab ride through the Seikan tunnel before the construction of the Shinkansen standard gauge line
- Video: Seikan tunnel with three-rail tracks, ride on a Cape Gauge train
Individual evidence
- ↑ Martin Randelhoff: [compact traffic knowledge ] The longest railway tunnel in the world. In: Zukunft-mobilitaet.net. Martin Randelhoff, August 12, 2013, accessed August 25, 2019 .
- ↑ a b c We'll tackle it . In: Der Spiegel . No. 6 , 1983, pp. 120, 122 ( online ).
- ↑ Japan left key straits open for US nukes. The Japan Times , June 22, 2009, accessed December 11, 2018 .
- ^ The Seikan Tunnel from Aomori to Hokkaido: the World's Longest Undersea Tunnel. Japan Info, February 5, 2016, accessed December 11, 2018 .
- ^ B. Paulson: Seikan Undersea Tunnel . In: Journal of the Construction Division . tape 107 , no. 3 . American Society of Civil Engineers , Reston (Virginia) 1981, pp. 509-525 .
- ↑ A. Kitamura, Y. Takeuchi: Seikan Tunnel . In: Journal of Construction Engineering and Management . tape 109 , no. 1 . American Society of Civil Engineers , Reston (Virginia) 1983, pp. 25-38 , doi : 10.1061 / (ASCE) 0733-9364 (1983) 109: 1 (25) .
- ↑ H. Tsuji, T. Sawada, M. Takizawa: Extraordinary inundation accidents in the Seikan undersea tunnel . In: Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers, Geotechnical Engineering . tape 119 , no. 1 . Institution of Civil Engineers , London 1996, pp. 1–14 , doi : 10.1680 / igeng.1996.28131 .
- ↑ Martin Randelhoff: [compact traffic knowledge ] The longest railway tunnel in the world. In: Zukunft-mobilitaet.net. Martin Randelhoff, August 12, 2013, accessed August 25, 2019 .
- ^ Yoshihiko Sato: Hokkaido Shinkansen prepares for launch . International Railway Journal , February 16, 2016, accessed August 11, 2016 .
- ↑ a b c d Oskar Stalder: The Seikan tunnel in Japan - structure and challenge. In: Ferrum: News from the iron library. Eisenbibliothek , 2008, pp. 65–68 , accessed on December 11, 2018 .
- ↑ a b Shoshi Shimamura: Overview of Hokkaido Shinkansen (Opening between Shin-Aomori and Shin-Hakodate-Hokuto) . (PDF, 549 kB) In: Japan Railway & Transport Review 68th East Japan Railway Culture Foundation , October 2016, accessed December 11, 2018 .
- ↑ a b c d 広 報 そ と が は ま 平 成 20 年 3 月 号 (No.36). (PDF, 16.8 MB) Information magazine of the Sotogahama municipality (No. 36). Sotogahama, September 2008, archived from the original on April 12, 2013 ; Retrieved December 11, 2018 (Japanese).
- ↑ Shogo Matsuo: An overview of the Seikan Tunnel Project Under the Ocean . In: Tunneling and Underground Space Technology . tape 1 , no. 3-4 . Elsevier , Amsterdam 1986, p. 323-331 .
- ↑ Hiroko Kojima: 青 函 ト ン ネ ル 建設 の 組織 論 的 研究. (PDF, 1.8 MB) (Organizational study of the Seikan tunnel construction). Hokkaidō University , March 1984, p. 5 , accessed December 11, 2018 (Japanese).
- ^ The JR Hokkaido . No. 337 . JR Hokkaidō , Sapporo March 2016, p. 7 .
- ↑ Penetration of the Seikan tunnel . In: Railway technical review . tape 34 , no. 4 . Eurailpress, Hamburg 1985, p. 274 .
- ↑ a b c White Elephant . In: Der Spiegel . No. 24 , 1985, pp. 151 ( online ).
- ^ Peter Galloway: Japan's super tunnel a political nightmare . In: The Globe and Mail . February 25, 1981, p. 15 .
- ↑ Shuichi Takashima: Railway Operators in Japan 2: Hokkaido. (PDF, 3.3 MB) In: Japan Railway & Transport Review 28th East Japan Railway Culture Foundation, September 2001, accessed December 11, 2018 .
- ↑ 平 成 26 年 3 月 ダ イ ヤ 改正 に つ い て. (PDF, 300 kB) JR Hokkaidō , December 20, 2013, archived from the original on December 24, 2013 ; Retrieved December 11, 2018 (Japanese).
- ↑ 北海道 新 幹線 新 青森 〜 新 函館 北斗 間 開業 に 伴 う 運行 計画 の 概要 に つ い て. (PDF, 805 kB) JR Hokkaidō , September 16, 2015, accessed on December 11, 2018 (Japanese).
- ↑ Michitsugu Ikuma: Maintenance of the undersea section of the Seikan Tunnel . In: Tunneling and Underground Space Technology . tape 20 , no. 2 . Elsevier , Amsterdam March 2005, p. 143-149 , doi : 10.1016 / j.tust.2003.10.001 .
- ↑ At 30, undersea tunnel requires maintenance, need for speed. Asahi Shimbun , March 27, 2018, accessed December 11, 2018 .
- ↑ Keiko Nannichi: Research to look into feasibility of 200-kph cargo train. Asahi Shimbun , October 16, 2011, archived from the original on December 6, 2013 ; accessed on December 11, 2018 .