New GCF Worksite in Luxembourg

Men and machines at work in Bettembourg

GCF France has recently launched a new worksite in Luxembourg, where it is carrying out the complete renewal of a section of the A6 line between Bettembourg and Esch-sur-Alzette, just a few kilometres from the border with the French Moselle department in the Grand Est region.

Work is being carried out across four work zones along the double-track section between Bettembourg and Scheuerbusch (from pk 0+920 to pk 5+185), covering a total of 7,762.26 metres of track (3,882 metres of line). All operations will take place at night under a simultaneous possession of both tracks.

ETF Luxembourg is the lead contractor, while GCF is deploying its powerful fleet of machinery, proven through years of high-speed railway renewal works: a Matisa P95 renewal train with a team of 39 operators, a Matisa C75-2C ballast cleaning machine with 18 staff, a Matisa B4539 tamping machine, a Plasser 109-3X stabiliser, a Matisa R21 ballast profiler, as well as SE trucks for electric welding, road-rail loaders, flatbed wagon loaders, spoil recovery wagons and flat wagons for transporting removed rails.

At the site base, set up in the area known as the “Bettembourg triangle” due to its distinctive shape, storage areas have been organised for rails, ballast and both old and new sleepers, along with zones dedicated to parking and maintenance of the machinery in use.

More than 60 workers are involved in the project, which started on 28 March and is scheduled to complete its main operations by 11 April.

Meanwhile, at the end of March, GCF France successfully completed within the planned five-week timeframe the Tergnier–Laon worksite in Hauts-de-France, which involved the full renewal of track and ballast within the station.

The project has now entered a new phase involving the ballast cleaning of the Laon–Hirson section, to be completed by mid-April using a Matisa C75. “At the same time as ballast cleaning,” explains Sabino Carbone from the French management, “a geotextile layer is being installed—a polyester or polypropylene fabric that ensures separation between the subgrade and the ballast layer, preventing contamination, improving drainage and distributing loads.”

The geotextile, laid with 30–50 cm overlaps on a properly prepared surface, prevents ballast from sinking into soft subgrade and thus significantly reduces maintenance costs, proving essential for the long-term durability of the railway formation.

Finally, in the Grand Est region, work continues along line 001000 Paris Est–Mulhouse to renew rails and, in some sections, to carry out ballast cleaning and track replacement. By the end of June, the planned two-phase works will be completed across several sections of track 2 and track 1, with more than 18 km of rails replaced and over 10 km of tamping and levelling carried out.

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