Removing the tracks, excavating the earth, sliding an underpass and putting tracks back into place …. in 3 days-time!

The Oostende-Gent-Brussel railway line is one of the busiest in Belgium. In addition to the many tourists who travel by train to the coast, the freight transport between the Zeebrugge port and the rest of the country makes this a vital infrastructure in the Belgian economy. To improve the line’s efficiency, Infrabel has decided to increase the number of tracks from two to four between Gent and Brugge. The track widening will allow for freight carriage to be separated from passenger transport and for traffic frequency to be increased. In this context, BESIX has started carrying out works on the Aalter-Beernem section early 2019.

During a 3-day planned disruption of the line, the BESIX team had to remove the tracks, excavate the earth, lift and slide an underpass, refill the earth and put the tracks back into place. The time window allowed for this stretched from 1 am on 26 October to 4:30 am on Monday 28 October, at the Maria-Aalter station, located between Aalter and Beernem. Thanks to careful preparations and a strong dedication, focus and flexibility during the works, the team managed to successfully complete the project and ensure the train traffic could resume on time on a busy Monday morning.

A textbook example of One-Stop Shop!

You can say this is truly One-Stop-Shop at its best. It means BESIX, BESIX Infra and Van den Berg are equal partners working together on a single project, each with their own speciality.

The design was entirely done by BESIX’ Engineering Department in 3D using advanced drone measurements. BESIX is in charge of renovating the station environment, including underpasses and the major earthworks. BESIX Infra is responsible for the road and drainage works. As the last piece of the puzzle, Van den Berg takes care of the cabling, pipelines and certain aspects of the lighting. With this integrated approach, BESIX Group was able to offer all these disciplines as a single contractor, and to submit a competitive bid in the tender process.

Special thanks and congratulations to the BESIX team for this fantastic achievement!

Check out the video to see how they got the job done: speciality