The only site suitable for the construction of east tower of Messina Strait Bridge was crossed by Tyrrhenian Railway line. So, preliminarily to start the main works, it was necessary to create a bypass of the line to clear the flat space along the sea.

The main civil works are: Construction of a cut and cover railway tunnel made of pre-cast elements connected by in-situ pours;  temporary support of the excavation at the foot of a hill by means of  micropiles and soil anchors; consolidation of the foundation ground of the tunnel through columnar technology; partially pre-cast retaining walls..

Eurolink assigned to Enser the task to modify the previous project, developed by Italferr, the engineering company owned by Italian State Railway Company, in order to improve it and make it more suitable to the technologies suggested by the contractor. It has been necessary also to perform a geological-geotechnical  analysis of the site and the evaluation of the stability of the slope, on the basis of existing bore logs and of an additional geotechnical investigation co-ordinated by Enser.

One of the main geotechnical problem was due to the steep transversal slope of ground and bedrock, so while hill-side tunnel foundations are directly embedded in rock, sea-side ones lie on  up to 8 meters of soft ground, where settlements are increased by the weight of an embankment, planned to hide the structure. In this zone  continuous flight auger piles (CFA), even if don't reach bedrock, are very effective in order to reduce settlements. CFA piles make it possible to avoid decompressing the soil and using bentonite mud for drilling, with great simplification of the disposal of debris.