Celebrating 30 Years of tunnel!

Dr.-Ing. Roland Leucker

A toast to the birthday child. The first issue of tunnel appeared 30 years ago.
Even although some us are thinking about retiring after 30 years’ professional grind – it doesn’t mean you're past your sell-by date. On the contrary all that accumulated experience makes you invaluable to your company. And this also applies in similar fashion to the journal tunnel.
A great deal has been published about tunnelling in the past but this doesn’t mean there’s no more to be said. During its fledgling years when tunnel was still establishing itself clearly other topics were on the agenda as today. For instance mechanised tunnelling has developed rapidly in recent decades. And a substantial amount of experience has been gathered in the process.
The task of a journal like tunnel is to spread findings that have been acquired at various places and to make them available for use in new projects. In the past, tunnel has had an exceptional record in achieving this.
From the very beginning the journal has been published in 2 languages, an unchanging concept that remains the right one: offering a national and international forum to exchange findings and ideas for planning, tendering, financing, construction and operation of underground facilities for transport, supply and disposal, industry and leisure-time. A further success factor of tunnel is that in the process practicians have their say thus catering for an exchange of views among colleagues.
Although the articles published by tunnel have achieved a great deal, there is still a lot to do. Admittedly more and more records are being established – tunnels are becoming longer, are located at ever greater depths and possess larger diameters – however there are limits to physics even although this is often cheerfully overlooked by the general public. Good ideas from engineers continue to be in demand here; and these deserve to be reported on.
However new topics must also be tackled: the problems of major projects being accepted such as Stuttgart 21 indicate that more than technical challenges have to be overcome. Financing new tunnels at a time when public funds are becoming ever scarcer calls for creative ideas. In addition the topic of “energy” is becoming ever more important so that the economic operation of tunnels becomes increasingly imperative.There will be no shortage of topics in the future either.
I trust that the editorial office and the tunnel team also retain their enthusiasm in the years to come so that the journal continues to be a major factor in transferring knowledge at national, European and global level.
Good Luck!
Yours, Dr.-Ing. Roland Leucker
CEO of the
Research Association for Underground
Transportation Facilities Inc. (STUVA)