Tunnel godmother

Statue of Saint Barbara at the south portal of the Finne Tunnel during the construction phase.

As tunnel godmother one is woman referred to during the construction phase of a tunnel whose sponsorship takes over. From then on, she is the earthly representative of Saint Barbara , the patron saint of miners, during the construction phase . It is supposed to bring luck to the miners . The sponsorship in the mining and montanist tradition is always female.

As a rule, the godmother is introduced to her voluntary work as part of the symbolic tunnel construction . It typically triggers the first blast (in the case of blasting ) or the first tee (in the case of an excavator). If the tunneling is carried out by a tunnel boring machine , this can be set in motion symbolically.

In the course of the tunneling work, the tunnel sponsors usually visit the construction site, especially on December 4th each year, the commemoration day of St. Barbara, on which the tunneling work is suspended.

During the construction period, tunnels are usually referred to by the first name of the godmother. In machine driving, the tunnel boring machines used sometimes also bear the first name of the tunnel godmother. The office of godmother ends with the commissioning of the tunnel.

The custom of the tunnel sponsor is mainly known in Germany and Austria, but is also gaining a foothold in other countries, for example in Switzerland, Bulgaria and Sweden, thanks to the use of international construction consortia.

Tunnel sponsors

Construction site sign during the construction phase of the Audit Tunnel (2001). The structure was named the Sigrid Tunnel after its godmother, Sigrid Paefgen, during the drive .

The sponsorship of the tunnel Reitersberg has Marga Beckstein accepted. The tunnel is therefore referred to as the Marga tunnel in the construction phase .

Alexandra has taken on the sponsorship of the rescue tunnel of the Reitersberg tunnel.

Politicians or wives of politicians are often chosen as tunnel sponsors for tunnel projects. Business representatives or the wives of business representatives are less frequently entrusted with this task. In the case of very small projects (for example also with cross cuts ), employees of the construction companies sometimes also take on the function. Occasionally other women in public life are also tunnel sponsors (for example at the Dernbach tunnel ).

In the past few years, the following women, among others, have sponsored large projects:

• Hannelore Kohl - Tiergarten Tunnel Berlin (North), 1997
• Christiane Herzog - Rennsteig Tunnel , A71 motorway, 1998
• Roswitha Wiesheu - Irlahüll Tunnel (high-speed line Nuremberg – Ingolstadt), 1999
• Christina Rau - Tunnel north-south long-distance railway (Berlin), 1999
• Karin Strempel - Schottenberg Tunnel, Meissen, Bundesstrasse 101 , 2004
• Katharina Althaus - Schmücke Tunnel , A71 motorway, 2005
• Inken Oettinger - Katzenberg Tunnel , new and upgraded Karlsruhe – Basel line , 2005
• Angelika Meeth-Milbradt - City-Tunnel Leipzig , 2007
• Ingeborg Junge-Reyer - Unter den Linden underground tunnel , Berlin, 2007
• Charlotte Hopf - U-Bahn-Tunnel Alexanderplatz - Brandenburg Gate , Berlin, 2013
• Tülay Schmid - Filder Tunnel for Stuttgart 21 2014

in Austria:

• Gabi Burgstaller - Lieferinger Tunnel of the Westautobahn 2001 and 2nd tunnel tube of the Tauerntunnel of the Tauernautobahn 2006
• Margit Fischer - Vienna Woods Tunnel
• Hella Ranner - Koralm Tunnel Railway Tunnel Styria-Carinthia 2010
• Doris Bures - Semmering Base Tunnel

in Switzerland:

• Yvonne Dünser - New Albula Tunnel II 2015

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Welcome women . In: Süddeutsche Zeitung (Munich South edition), March 16, 2006, p. R3.
2. ^ Federal Association of Interpreters and Translators (ed.): Living languages . tape 48-49 . Langenscheidt, 2003, ISBN 3-406-49650-4 , p. 25 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
3. ↑ Christina, Gabi and Trude work successfully underground . In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung . No. 205, September 3, 2004, p. 19.
4. ↑ Zurich west bypass, Info 9 from November 2000. (PDF; 4.2 MB) Retrieved on January 12, 2011 . 
5. ^ Alpine: Tunnel ground-breaking ceremony in Bulgaria attended by prominent politicians and economic experts. (PDF; 27 kB) (No longer available online.) Formerly in the original ; Retrieved January 7, 2011 .  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.    
6. ↑ Construction of the Filder Tunnel has started. stuttgarter-zeitung.de
7. ↑ Announcement ceremony in the Tauern tunnel, 2nd tube, on September 15, 2006, ( memento of the original from October 13, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The  archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. on ptu.at (pdf, accessed on January 9, 2011).
8. ^ "Tunnelpatin" Margit Fischer visited the ÖBB construction site at the west portal, on hofburg.at (accessed on January 9, 2011).