High-speed railway line Erfurt–Leipzig/Halle (VDE 8.2)

The high-speed railway line between Erfurt and Leipzig/Halle is section 8.2 of the German Unity Transport Projects, in short VDE. It has been designed as a standard-gauge, double-track electrified railway route for high-quality passenger and goods traffic and has a total length of 123km. PORR contributed two 90km sections of slab tracks in tunnels, on bridges and in open sections.
 
The route layout has been designed for speeds of up to 300km/h. Starting at Erfurt’s main station, the route first runs parallel to the existing route, branches off in a north-easterly direction at Vieselbach and runs through the Thuringian Basin via the Scherkonde bridge at Krautheim and the Gänsebach bridge at Buttstädt.

• 179.352km of slab tracks (17 % in tunnels, 16 % on bridges)
• 3 tunnels (a total of 15.4km of slab tracks): Finne tunnel: 6,970m, Bibra tunnel: 6,466m, Osterberg tunnel: 2,082m
• 6 bridges: Scherkonde bridge: 577m, Gänsebach bridge: 1,012m, Saubach bridge: 248m, Unstrut bridge: 2,668m, Stöbnitz bridge: 297m, Saale-Elster bridge: 6,465m
• Halle/Salle turnoff: 2,112m
• 22km of noise and wind protection walls including foundations
• 60km of overhead line mast foundations
• 42 switches in slab tracks