Milestone for world's longest rail tunnel under construction beneath Alps

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Italian construction and civil engineering group Webuild has announced the completion of a 24.1 km tunnel through the southeastern Alps, part of what is set to become the longest railway tunnel in the world.

The Brenner Base Tunnel (BBT), named after the mountainous pass that it is built beneath, will connect the town of Fortezza, Italy, with Innsbruck in Austria.

When complete, the BBT will connect with an existing Austrian tunnel to form the total 64 km tunnel length, which developers say will slash journey times between the two places by 70% from 80 to 25 minutes.

Read more: Webuild wins €1bn contract on Brenner Base Tunnel

In addition to high-speed rail trains, the project will also incorporate a 230 km (143 miles) network of tunnels and spaces, 151 km (94 miles) of which have already been excavated. These tunnels, the deepest of which lies 1,700 km below the mountain peaks, will carry passenger trains at speeds of up to 250 km/h (155 mph) and cargo trains at 160 km/h (100 mph).

"A breakthrough in a challenging stretch of excavation is always something to celebrate. And excavation using drilling and blasting is a significant challenge. We thank the miners and our employees for their exceptional work", said BBT CEOs Martin Gradnitzer and Gilberto Cardola.

"Linking up these two construction sites to create a larger construction area, we have reached an important milestone in the construction of the BBT infrastructure project."

The project is part of the EU's Trans-European Transport Network (TEN-T), the high-speed/high-capacity network which aims to improve transport connections for people and goods throughout the continent and to encourage sustainable mobility in the bloc by encouraging a shift from road to rail.

The Scandinavian-Mediterranean Corridor, of which the BBT will be a part, is set to connect the transport system between the port of Narvik in Northern Norway and Valletta in Malta.

Webuild is more heavily involved in the construction of the BBT than any other firm and is currently working on four lots for the project, employing as many as 1600 workers.

One of the most difficult aspects of tunnelling beneath the Alps is crossing the Periadriatic Sea, an S-shaped, 1000 km long geological fault running from the Tyrrhenian Sea to Hungary. 

Read more: Webuild-led consortium awarded €1bn railway contract in Sicily

The company is working on a total of 15 TEN-T projects in its native Italy, comprising around 500 km (310 miles) of roads and rail lines connecting Calabria, Puglia and Sicily.

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