This incredible feat of engineering took 17 years of continuous construction to finish.
This tunnel is an incredible feat of engineering(Image: Getty)
Ten years ago this month, construction finished on one of the most impressive feats of engineering in the world. The Gotthard Base Tunnel – a railway tunnel below the Lepontine Alps in Switzerland – is the longest and deepest transport tunnel in the world.
It opened in June 2016 and has provided a high-speed rail link between northern and southern Europe. Specifically, the train runs between Rotterdam in the Netherlands and Genoa in Italy.
It’s called a Base Tunnel as it travels through the base of the mountain, rather than trying to snake over the ranges.
This means that the journey on this train is by and large straight and flat.
The high speed trains that travel through it can reach speeds of 250km/h, slicing the journey time significantly.
Construction of this incredible tunnel took a whopping 17 years of continuous labour, and approximately CHF 12.2 billion (£11.2billion) to build.
Engineers and construction crews excavated more than 28 million tonnes of rock using massive boring machines to dig it out, as well as precious blasting to clear the way for the tunnel.
Before its construction, trains had to carefully traverse the winding mountain routes which meant travel speed and cargo capacity was significantly hampered.
Now, trains can whip through the solid rock mountain and travel between Erstfeld in the north to Bodio in the south in just 20 minutes.
This incredible tunnel runs for 57km and at its deepest point it is thousands of feet deep.
At the deepest point, trains are travelling at 7,546 feet below the surface.
Since its construction, the train has carried thousands of people with data showing that the number of people travelling through the Gotthard by train has almost doubled in 10 years
In 2025 the average was 16,400 a day, compared with 9,000 in 2015, according to the Swiss Federal Railways.