On 01.06.2016 the inauguration of the Gotthard Base Tunnel was held at Rynächt Pollegio north and south. The Gotthard Base tunnel is 57km long between the north portal in Erstfeld and Bodio in the south and makes it the longest in the world, surpassing the 53.9km Seikan Tunnel in northern Japan. It has been seventeen years since the the tunnel was started and it has had over EUR 11billion in investment.

The Gotthard base tunnel is part of the corridor between Rotterdam and Genoa and was built 600 m lower than the old railway tunnel built between 1872 and 1881. In the new tunnel will be able to carry standard freight trains of up to 3,600 tons. There will be 260 transit freight trains and 65 passenger trains a day. With all the improvements and modernization by December 2016 the travel time from Hamburg to Rome will have been reduced from 17 hours and 32 minutes to 14 hours and 31 minutes.

Click here for a video, here and here for the tunnelbuilder archive. and for further information please visit http://www.rsi.ch/news/dossier/sangottardo/, http://www.gottardo2016.ch/it and https://www.alptransit.ch/it/home/. 22/16.