European leaders open world's longest rail tunnel in Switzerland
The world’s longest rail tunnel, running for 35 miles (57km) under the Swiss Alps, has officially opened.
The Swiss president, Johann Schneider-Ammann, said the tunnel, which it is hoped will ease transit through the heart of the continent, would “join the people and the economies” of Europe at a time of rising nationalism and border closures.
He spoke before European leaders made a ceremonial first journey through the Gotthard base tunnel. Passengers included the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, the French president, François Hollande, and the Italian prime minister, Matteo Renzi.
While the tunnel was entirely funded by Switzerland, a non-EU member, the bloc’s transport commissioner, Violeta Bulc, hailed it as “a godsend” for the continent.
It runs from Erstfeld in the central Swiss canton of Uri, to Bodio in the southern Ticino canton.
Travel through the Alpine region, by rail or by road, has involved taking a zigzag and undulating route, and the tunnel was designed to offer a better option for both private travel and commercial freight.
When the full service opens in December, the tunnel will reduce the train journey from Zurich to Milan in northern Italy to 2hr 40min, roughly an hour less than it currently takes.
It should also make rail freight more efficient – partly by supporting heavier cargo, which should reduce the number of lorries on the roads, improving traffic and curbing pollution.
The number of daily rail passengers is expected to increase from 9,000 people to 15,000 by 2020, according to the Swiss federal railway service.
The rough design for a rail tunnel under the Gotthard pass was first sketched by Swiss engineer Carl Eduard Gruner in 1947, but bureaucratic delays, cost concerns and other hurdles pushed back the start of construction until 1999.
The work took 17 years at a cost of more than 12bn Swiss francs (£8.4bn). The Swiss rail service said it took 43,800 hours of non-stop work by 125 labourers rotating in three shifts to lay the tunnel’s slab track.
The venture was largely made possible by technical advances in tunnel-boring technology, which replaced the costly and dangerous blast-and-drill method.
The primary machine used to make the Gotthard tunnel was about 410 metres long and functioned like a mobile factory. It cuts through rock and throws the debris backwards while simultaneously placing the pre-formed segments of concrete that form the shape of the tunnel. A separate system then bonds the pieces together.
The tunnel has surpassed Japan’s 33.5-mile (53.9km) Seikan tunnel as the world’s longest train tunnel. The 31.4-mile (50.5km) Channel tunnel has been bumped into third place.
Switzerland may not be able to hold on to its titlefor long, however. The Chinese government plans to build a tunnel underneath the Bohai straits measuring 76 miles (123km) – more than twice the length of the Gotthard base tunnel.
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