The world’s deepest tunnel – the Gotthard Base Tunnel – is an astonishing 57 kilometers long with a cost of £9.6bn ($12bn) and was built to help move freight in a more environmentally friendly way through a mountain range, as well as to boost the economy.
The idea for the Gotthard Base Tunnel – a railway tunnel through the Swiss Alps – was first pitched in the 1960s, but it didn’t open until 2016.
At a staggering 2,300 meters deep and 57 kilometers long, the Gotthard Base Tunnel broke records when it opened to traffic eight years ago. The idea of building a new tunnel in the Swiss Alps to connect the North Sea and the Mediterranean via train was first dreamed up in the 1960s, but it wasn’t until 2012 that the enormous project finally came to fruition, and work began to construct a specially-designed straight tunnel that would allow trains to travel through at 250km/h.
To construct the tunnel, millions of cubic meters of rock had to be excavated from beneath the Alps, using enormous tunnel boring machines known as “giant moles”. The central idea behind the tunnel was to give various parts of Switzerland an economic boost.
Construction bosses from Ballast Nedham said the record-breaking structure has cut the journey time between Zurich and Milan to just two hours and 40 minutes, saving travelers more than an hour in transit time.
Once opened, it also gained the top spot for ‘longest traffic tunnel’, taking the crown from the Japanese Seikantunne. And, despite its reaching a staggering 2,300 meters in depth, the Gotthard Base Tunnel has only small height differences, meaning it seems relatively flat.
Background on the Gotthard Tunnel
The main purpose of the Gotthard Base Tunnel is to increase local transport capacity through the Alpine barrier, especially for freight on the Rotterdam–Basel–Genoa corridor, and more specifically to shift freight volumes from trucks to freight trains.
This both significantly reduces the danger of fatal road crashes involving trucks and reduces the environmental damage caused by heavy trucks. The tunnel also provides a faster connection between the canton of Ticino and the rest of Switzerland, as well as between northern and southern Europe.
After 64 percent of Swiss voters accepted the project in a 1992 referendum, the first preparatory and exploratory work began in 1996. Construction began in November 1999 at Amsteg. Drilling operations were completed in March 2011.
In 2016, several events, including festivities and special exhibitions, were held around the Gotthard, culminating in the inauguration in early June, dubbed Gottardo 2016. Public institutions joined the celebrations: Swiss Post issued a special stamp commemorating the Gotthard Base Tunnel, and Swissmint issued gold and silver coins dedicated to the opening.
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