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The Gotthard tunnel runs 2.3 km under the mountain at its
deepest point
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The world's longest and deepest rail tunnel is to be
officially opened in Switzerland, after almost two decades of construction
work.
The 57km (35-mile) twin-bore Gotthard base tunnel will
provide a high-speed rail link under the Swiss Alps between northern and
southern Europe.
Switzerland says it will revolutionise European freight
transport.
Goods currently carried on the route by a million lorries a
year will go by train instead.
Switzerland's engineering triumph
The tunnel will overtake Japan's 53.9 km Seikan rail tunnel
as the longest in the world and push the 50.5 km Channel Tunnel linking the UK
and France into third place.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Francois
Hollande and Italy's Prime Minister Matteo Renzi are due to attend the grand
opening.
"It is just part of the Swiss identity," federal
transport office director Peter Fueglistaler told Reuters news agency.
"For us, conquering the Alps is like the Dutch
exploring the oceans."
The project, which cost more than $12bn to build, was
endorsed by Swiss voters in a referendum in 1992. Voters then backed a proposal
from environmental groups to move all freight travelling through Switzerland
from road to rail two years later.
The completed tunnel travels up to 2.3 km below the surface
of the mountains above and through rock that reaches temperatures of 46C.
Engineers had to dig and blast through 73 different kinds of
rock, some as hard as granite and others as soft as sugar. More than 28m tonnes
of rock was excavated. Nine workers died during the work.
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About 260 freight trains and 65 passenger trains will go
through the tunnel every day.
Now the completed tunnel - delivered on time and within
budget - will create a mainline rail connection between Rotterdam in the
Netherlands and Genoa in Italy.
When full services begin in December, the journey time for
travellers between Zurich and Milan will be reduced by an hour to two hours and
40 minutes.
Its trajectory will be flat and straight instead of winding
up through the mountains like the old rail tunnel and a road tunnel opened in
1980.
About 260 freight trains and 65 passenger trains will pass
through the tunnel in as little as 17 minutes.
The tunnel is being financed by value-added and fuel taxes,
road charges on heavy vehicles and state loans that are due to be repaid within
a decade.
Swiss bank Credit Suisse has said is economic benefits will
include the easier movement of goods and increased tourism.
-Sources BBC News
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