FCC, through Austrian subsidiary Alpine, is to build an urban railway tunnel in the German city of Karlsruhe for a total of 310 million euro. The award was announced by Karlsruher Schieneninfrastruktur-Gesellschaft mbH (KASIG), a company owned by the city of Karlsruhe.

Karlsruhe is carrying out a project as part of its 'combined solution' for the City Railway tunnel. It will relieve the traffic in the inner city and improve the quality of life.

The project, costing a total of 588 million euro, will include the construction of two tunnels for the city railway over a distance of 3.4 kilometres with seven stations. The road tunnel for motor traffic is 1.4 kilometres long. The line for the new city railway above ground will be 1.5 kilometres long with three stations.

The services to be provided by ALPINE range from planning the design and statics, to building the sewer, installing the underground cables and special underground engineering as well as constructing roads and tunnels. It will also be responsible for the construction of the underground stations and tunnel ramps.

ALPINE, experienced in executing large-scale projects as well as in tunnel construction, sees the Karlsruhe project as a real challenge. Apart from the classic construction work, the revitalization of some 35 kilometres of shut-down supply lines while keeping traffic flowing above ground during construction will be a major technical and logistical achievement. The project is scheduled for completion in 2016.

ALPINE is currently building two other railway tunnels in Germany for Bahn AG (Germany's rail operator), under contracts worth almost 122 million euro:  the Baumleite and Kaiser Wilhelm tunnels.

FCC acquired Alpine in 2006. The company is specialised in major infrastructure work, particularly underground construction. Alpine's annual revenues amount to close to 3.5 billion euro.