In the contract that started in May 2023, we are building more than three kilometres of new track along the main railway as well as three bridges and nine points, seven of which will be final and two temporary. We are also improving and reinforcing the foundations of the railway with driven and bored piles as well as pile slabs and by constructing structural layers that support the railway. The contract also includes constructing new drums that pass below the railway, and some street and road works.
The densely constructed urban environment next to the busy railway and extremely challenging ground conditions make the construction slightly more demanding. There are also other actors doing construction in the area at the same time, which means that construction requires good planning and scheduling.
We are implementing the contract in good cooperation between the Kreate Group’s professionals in railway, bridge and transport infrastructure construction. This will also allow us to utilise our new expertise in electric railroads, as the contract contains creating wire and cable routes and laying foundations for electric railways and signals. We implement the piling work in cooperation with special foundation construction specialists from KFS Finland Oy, a company partially owned by Kreate.
In its projects, Kreate is actively surveying opportunities to promote the eco-friendliness of worksites and the circular economy. In the Kytömaa–Ainola contract, we are utilising the edge beams of old bridges by turning them into crushed concrete at our circular economy zones; we then aim to utilise the material in our other projects in the Helsinki region.
The massive Helsinki–Riihimäki project will be executed in three stages, the first of which is being constructed between 2016 and 2024. Kreate has also been involved in the first stage, executing three different railway and bridge contracts between Ainola and Purola. The cost estimate for the second stage, which will be constructed between 2021 and 2028, is EUR 273 million.
The plan is for the construction contract between Kytömaa and Ainola, which is worth more than EUR 10 million, to be complete in December 2024. The client for the project is the Finnish Transport Infrastructure Agency.