Is there some sort of strange competition going on between the Swiss and the Japanese for sophisticated railway? Certainly the Chinese will outdo all of us.
2020 Events:
Two other transalpine tunnels are planned to exceed 50km but are unlikely to be complete until the 2020s. One tunnel will connect Lyon in France to Turin in Italy and another is due to replace the Brenner tunnel between Austria and Italy.
Swiss create world's longest tunnel
Engineers have drilled through the last remaining rock to create the world's longest tunnel, under the Swiss Alps.
The 9.8bn Swiss franc (£6.4bn; $10.3bn) project will take up to 300 trains each day underneath the Alps.
The length of the Gotthard tunnel exceeds the 53.8km Seikan rail tunnel linking the Japanese islands of Honshu and Hokkaido and the 50km Channel Tunnel linking England and France.
Switzerland is one of Europe's major junctions for freight and the tunnel is part of a larger project aiming to move cargo off the roads and on to rail.
Improvements on the northern and southern approaches to the new Gotthard tunnel have been postponed, so trains will run on existing track there.
Swiss Transport Minister Moritz Leuenberger said that the Gotthard Tunnel would become a spectacular and grandiose monument with which all tunnels would be compared.
Two other transalpine tunnels are planned to exceed 50km but are unlikely to be complete until the 2020s. One tunnel will connect Lyon in France to Turin in Italy and another is due to replace the Brenner tunnel between Austria and Italy.
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