Gotthard, World’s Longest Rail Tunnel, to Open in Switzerland

The Gotthard tunnel has overtaken Japan’s 53.9 km Seikan rail tunnel as the longest in the world. (Photo: YouTube Screengrab)

The world’s longest and deepest rail tunnel will finally be opened in Switzerland, almost two decades after the construction work began, a report said on Wednesday.

The twin-bore Gotthard base tunnel is 57 kilometres long and will provide a high-speed rail link under the Swiss Alps between northern and southern Europe, BBC reported.

The tunnel has overtaken Japan’s 53.9 km Seikan rail tunnel as the longest in the world.

The tunnel will reduce the journey between Zurich and Milan by an hour, to two hours and 40 minutes.

• The project was endorsed by Swiss voters in a referendum in 1992
  
  
• It costed more than $12 billion to build
  
  
• The tunnel travels up to 2.5 km below the surface of the mountains above and through rock
  
  
• Engineers had to dig and blast through 73 different kinds of rock to build it
  
  
• About 260 freight trains and 65 passenger trains will pass through the tunnel in as little as 17 minutes