The world's longest train tunnel will officially open today, nearly seven decades after the initial design was conceived.
Switzerland's 57-kilometre (35-mile) Gotthard Base Tunnel runs under the Alps from Erstfeld in the central canton of Uri, to Bodio in the southern Ticino canton.
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, concerns over the cost and other hurdles pushed back the start of construction until 1999.
The Gotthard rail link has taken 20 years to build, and cost more than $12bn (£8.2bn). It will, the Swiss say, revolutionise Europe's freight transport.
Plans for a better rail tunnel have been around since the 1940s, but it was not until 1992 that Swiss voters backed their government's plan to build a new high-speed rail link through the Alps.
Two years later the project got added impetus, when Swiss voters also backed a proposal from environmental groups to move all freight travelling through Switzerland from road to rail.
But the plan was ambitious, costly to the Swiss taxpayers who had agreed to pay for it, and fraught with engineering challenges.
The first geologists surveying the proposed route suggested it might be impossible to bore a tunnel straight through the Gotthard, because of the unpredictable quality of the rock.
Once work began, those challenges soon became apparent. In some areas the rock, one engineer remembers, was "as soft as butter" meaning excavation inched along at no more than half a metre a day.
In other places things went more smoothly.
A massive 10m (30ft) diameter tunnel-boring machine could, on a good day, dig out 40m of tunnel a day - a world record.
But the Gotthard is also the world's deepest tunnel, and with 2.3km (1.4 miles) of mountain pressing down on it, gravity constantly tried to close up the space which had been excavated. And so, along the tunnel's length, reinforced steel rings had to be inserted, to prevent it collapsing in on itself.
For 17 years, 365 days a year, 24 hours a day, more than 2,000 people have worked on the tunnel. There have been accidents: nine tunnel miners have died.
But now the tunnel is ready, and Europe's leaders, including German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Francois Hollande and Italy's Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, are all arriving to take a look.
Twin tunnels running in both directions north-south should transport Europe's freight not only much more safely, but much faster. With no danger of collision, trains will race through the tunnel at speeds of up to 250km/h (155mph).
Where older alpine tunnels corkscrewed their way up through the mountains, the new railway line, from Zurich in the north all the way to Lugano in the south, is completely flat and straight.
Swiss Federal President Johann Schneider- Ammann, right, speaks with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, left, on the opening day of the Gotthard rail tunnel
1.At a length of 57 kilometres (34.5 miles) the GBT will overtake Japan's 53.9-kilometre Seikan tunnel as the longest rail tunnel in the world.
3.A total of 152 kilometres of tunnel was carved through the mountain.
4.Swiss engineer Carl Eduard Gruner first sketched the idea for a rail tunnel under the Alps at the Gotthard Pass in 1947.
5.Sixty-nine years later, at a cost
of just over 12 billion Swiss francs ($12 billion, 11 billion euros),
the Gotthard Base Tunnel is set to open.
6.Swiss voters -- despite
opposition at times from the government and parliament -- supported the
gargantuan rail project in a series of binding referendums in the 1990s.
7.The mammoth rail venture 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.8.The tunnel was carved by a massive 410-metre-long boring machine that removed roughly 28 million tonnes of rock.
9.The first ones to travel the
tunnel at the official opening are 500 lucky winners plus guests from
the 130,000 who entered a ticket lottery for the inaugural trip.
10.Ultimately, 260 freight trains
and 65 passenger trains should pass through the GBT per day, at speeds
of 200 kilometres per hour, the rail service said.Swiss Federal President Johann Schneider-Ammann (R) speaks on the opening day of the Gotthard rail tunnel
Reaching a depth of 2,300 meters (7,545 feet, almost 1.5 miles) the tunnel will slice an hour off the travel time between Zurich, Switzerland, and Milan, Italy.
Trains
will travel the tunnel, which runs between the towns of Erstfeld in the
north and Bodio in the south, in only 20 minutes, reaching speeds of up
to 250 kilometers an hour (155 mph), according to the Swiss Travel
System.
Beyond the anticipated
benefits for travel and trade, the project will provide a direct and
economic route for freight transport.
AlpTransit
Gotthard, the company behind the construction of the tunnel, says the
project will boost the efficiency and reliability of rail freight,
making it more competitive.
Gotthard
overtakes the 53.9-kilometer Seikan Tunnel in northern Japan as the
longest rail tunnel in the world, relegating the 50.5-kilometer Channel
Tunnel between Britain and France into third place.
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