Sixty years ago, the Swiss engineer Carl Eduard Gruner sketched out plans for what was then an impossible feat:  a tunnel through the famous Swiss Alps connecting his home town of Basel with the southern city of Chiasso.  At the time, it was a crazy pipe dream.  Now, it has become a reality.  The Gotthard Base Tunnel (GBT) stretches a staggering 35 miles long, making it the longest tunnel in the world.

Such a massive project was not without detractors, which is understandable considering the cost and difficulty of the tunnel.  The tunnel cost a staggering 10 billion Swiss francs (or $10.4 billion dollars) to construct and took the better part of 15 years to plan and drill, with preparations starting in 1996 for a tunnel that won’t open for service until 2017.  Still, the tunnel cuts an hour off of the travel time between Zurich and Milan and is expected to relieve pressure on crowded Alpine roads full of speeders.

“There have always been wise guys and sceptics predicting that it wouldn’t work,” said Peter Fueglistaler, director of the Swiss Federal Transport Office.  “A tunnel is only constructed once the final breakthrough has been made.  Before that, there are always geological risks.  We told the population clearly about these risks.  But the citizens nonetheless agreed.”

Tags: world’s longest tunnel, 35-mile long train tunnel, GBT, Gotthard Base Tunnel, Switzerland, Swiss Alps, massive train tunnel, engineering marvels, Peter Fueglistaler, Carl Edward Gruner, giant tunnels

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