Elementary, my dear Watson

89 tunnel elements of 217 meters length with four tubes each are to be built to cover the 18 kilometres spanning the Fehmarn Belt. There are 1.7 kilometres across the Fehmarn Sound, so common logic says that if you build 8-9 more elements at the factory in Rødbyhavn and sail them 40 kilometres to the Fehmarn Sound, then it would be fixed.

However, the water is too low in the Fehmarn Sound, and the Danish and German concrete standards vary. So instead of one element factory – at around six billion kroner – building 98 elements for two tunnels, an additional element factory is now to be built in Grossenbrode in Northern Germany, which will build the last eight elements. Everything is not always equally logical.

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Bernt Hertz Jensen
Editor

Deutsche Bahn is to build its own element factory for the Femernsund tunnel

The elements for the submerged tunnel under the Femern Sound are to be built in Großenbrode in Northern Germany. The water in Femernsund is too low to sail the elements in from the element factory in Rødbyhavn.