The longest railway tunnel in the world is completed after 7 decades

After 69 years of survey, design and construction, the Gotthard Base (GBT) tunnel across the Alps has finally been completed and put into use today.

According to Mirror, the GBT project was officially started in 2000 but engineer Carl Eduard Gruner had the idea of ​​building a cross-Alps railway tunnel in Switzerland in 1947.

Total investment for GBT construction project amounted to 12.3 billion USD with about 2,400 workers working continuously for 17 years.GBT was put into use from June 1, 2016 to transport goods, other commercial activities via GBT will be deployed from December 2016.

In order to access the GBT railway tunnel, the crew had to dig more than 28 million tons of rock and soil at the foot of the Alps.Some sections of the tunnel are at a record depth, about 2.25 km lower than the peak.

Giant tunnel excavator used in GBT project.

The workers celebrated the completion of the last tunnel drill on October 15, 2015.

After being put into use, the GBT railway tunnel will be the north-south transport-transportation artery of the European region with a total length of more than 57 km.Thus, GBT crossed the Seikan tunnel of Japan's more than 53.7 km to become the world's longest rail tunnel system.

Experts predict, GBT will be Europe's busiest transport corridor.It is estimated that there will be about 260 freight trains passing through here every day, with a maximum running speed of 100 km / h.

In addition to transporting goods, GBT also serves the travel of European people.Each day, it is estimated that 65 passenger trains run through GBT at speeds of up to 250 km / h.This tunnel will reduce travel time from Zurich to Milan to 1 hour 40 minutes, 60 minutes faster than the present.

The GBT project is said to be the driving force to promote tourism in Europe as well as real estate prices in surrounding areas.