A view inside the world's largest train tunnel, now under construction
 

A miner climbs on excavated rocks after a giant drill machine broke through at the final section Sedrun-Faido, at the construction site of the NEAT Gotthard Base Tunnel March 23, 2011. Crossing the Alps, the world's longest train tunnel should become operational at the end of 2016. The project consists of two parallel single track tunnels, each of a length of 57 km (35 miles).http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1300935042.jpg A view inside the world's largest train tunnel, now under construction - Boing Boing

Cool stuff. For some reason I was expecting it to be in China though.

2016?

There is no way we would ever undertake such a long term project here in the United States.

From Wikipedia: "After 64 percent of Swiss voters accepted the AlpTransit project in a 1992 referendum, construction of the tunnel began in 1996."


20 year project from ground breaking to finish..

I just love hammering through a tunnel in my 911 with the windows down.

There's a tunnel in our city that's only 800 meters long but still worth the effort.
Imagine 57kms :D:D:D

That would sound awesome with my Webers.

I had an old Alfa Romero with side draft Webers.

That car screamed "me sucky sucky"... Coolest sound ever!

Project I'm currently working on, not quite as impressive though...

2 tunnels, 8.5m diameter, both little over a kilometer long.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1300948760.jpg

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1300948783.jpg

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1300948802.jpg

That is an amazing tunnel.

We don't have any tunnels around here. I can't imagine what the ventilation needs are for a tunnel that long. I guess those are some big fans.

We've been very busy drilling tunnels under King County and I've had a front row seat. Mostly 16' diameter or so, but we're planning one that will be in the neighborhood of 54 feet. That will be a record. Through glacial fill, between a big lake and Puget Sound.

We can't even build high speed rail in super flat Florida! By comparison, that should be a piece of cake compared to this tunnel.

Very very impressive.

Better link Gotthard Base Tunnel - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...rla_scheme.png

We CAN build one but we aren't dumb enough to actually do it. Waste O'money.

Is this thread related to the women with the herion up her who-ha?

Boston's Big Dig was close ... was it 15 or so years??

Traveling thru Switzerland and especially northern Italy, it seems like the tunnel diggers have gone crazy. Some roads seem to be almost as much underground as above. Really an engineering marvel!!
That and the sport bike riders there,WOW!! fully suited up and major knee dragging canyon and Alpine carving. Moto GP on the roads. Fun to watch.