On June 1st, the opening festivities for the Gotthard Base Tunnel, the world’s longest railway tunnel have begun, after 17 years of construction. The ministers and railway heads have taken part in the opening ceremony, along with the entire Federal Council, the Swiss parliament, and many further guests. These include the heads of state and government of Germany, France, Italy, Austria and Liechtenstein, as well as the European Commissioner for Transport. In total, around 1,100 guests participated.
Around 160,000 interested individuals from the public applied for a seat in the trains which on June 1st will be the first to travel through the Gotthard Base Tunnel (GBT). The one thousand winners assembled in Arth-Goldau and Bellinzona to be welcomed aboard those trips and thereby to signal the start of today’s GBT opening ceremony.
The celebration will be followed on June 2 by the festival for those involved in the project, organised by AlpTransit Gotthard, and on June 3 by the passage through the tunnel of the first goods train. On the weekend of June 4/5, under the umbrella leadership of Swiss Federal Railways, the public are invited to the open-house festivities at both portals.
The Gotthard Base Tunnel consists of two 57-kilometres-long single-track tubes. Including all cross-passages, access tunnels and shafts, the total length of the tunnel system is over 152 km. It links the north portal at Erstfeld with the south portal at Bodio.
The test operation phase took place from October 2015 to May 2016 and scheduled train services will start in December 2016.
Photo: AlpTransit Gotthard Ltd
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