EngineeringLength
Longest railway tunnel
57.104 km
35.483 mi
- Record holder
- Gotthard Base Tunnel
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What to remember
Beneath the Saint-Gotthard massif in Switzerland, trains run on the level for 57.104 km. The Gotthard Base Tunnel is the longest railway tunnel. It consists of two single-track tubes, the second one measuring 57.017 km, and it links Erstfeld in the canton of Uri with Ticino, passing below Sedrun in Graubünden.
A base tunnel is a low-level route: trains no longer need to climb to cross the Alps, and this was the first flat route of its kind through the range. Up to 2,450 m of rock lie above the tunnel, which also makes it the deepest traffic tunnel in the world.
Work began in 1996 and the breakthrough came in 2011. The tunnel opened in June 2016, with commercial service starting on 11 December 2016. It is the third tunnel connecting Uri and Ticino, after the Gotthard Tunnel and the Gotthard Road Tunnel. By train, the trip between Zurich and Milan drops to 2 h 40 min.
Related records
Sources and licences
- Value, holder and date: Wikipedia article “List of longest railway tunnels” (revision used 1379393957). Data from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- Photo: Hannes Ortlieb ( Diskussion ), Photo licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 (Wikimedia Commons).
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