ABSTRACT
The Sophia railway tunnel in the West of the Netherlands is part of the Betuwelijn railway line. In this paper the design of the starting shaft will be discussed. Attention will be paid to the vertical equilibrium, an important item in the Netherlands due to the very high ground water table, and the deformations of the shaft. Because the shaft is unique in the absence of tension piles or anchors, the Dutch Center for Underground Construction (CUR-COB) used the opportunity to install test equipment to observe the heave and the behavior of the earth and water pressures inside the shaft.
