Naples-Cancello section of the Naples-Bari high speed railway

The JV of SYSTRA SOTECNI and Rocksoil, an Italian engineering firm specialised in geotechnics, was awarded a Design & Build contract for the construction of the Naples-Cancello section of the new High Speed/High Capacity (HS/HC) Naples-Bari, that is part of the Trans European Transport Network. This project is the largest rail investment programme carried out in Italy.

The entire Naples-Bari HS/HC LINE was also awarded the Pimby Green 2021 Price, which recognised a strategic mobility infrastructure, highly sustainable, welcomed by the territory and its communities.

The Project team is in charge of the detailed design that also involves the checking of submerged slab tunnel work, composite viaducts and railway subsystems, tunnels, geological studies, and geotechnics.

The double-track railway section between Naples and Cancello is 15.6km long and its main figures are:

• Embankments: 7,700m;
• Trenches: 300m;
• Viaducts: n° 4 (3.8 km);
• Cut&Cover tunnel: 2.8km;
• Stops and stations: Casalnuovo stop (in tunnel);
• Centro Commerciale stop (in viaduct);
• Acerra new station;
• Railway subsystems: track, catenary, low-voltage, signalling and TLC.

Main Innovation elements are:

• Installation of steel Arch Bridges (length about 80 metres, height 21 metres, weight 2,500 tonnes);
• Adoption of BIM for stations;
• Mobile worksite in a shopping centre;
• Compressed Air for Casalnuovo cut&cover tunnel;
• Submerged slabs for Casalnuovo cut&cover tunnel.

A ‘Mobile worksite’ is a site fed by the viaduct accessing a mall, closed into a limited site, protected by advertising panels. Once completed the arches and the worksite shifts will still be fed by the viaduct to which the last arches are added.

Compressed air for counteracting water rises during excavation of Casalnuovo cut&cover and Submerged slabs in correspondence with the crossing of the ABC water pipe. These methods are adopted to improve workers safety and execution speed.