Switzerland's Mega Tunnel Sets Record

Anonymous Dupaeur writes "Switzerland, co-home of CERN and numerous other world organizations, has come closer to the completion of their recent megaproject: the Gotthard Base Tunnel, which will be the largest railway tunnel made by man. The project is due to be completed in 2017, and will host 200 to 250 trains a day with a significantly larger kinetic energy than the LHC's beams." After the completion of today's work, the tunnel is now 57 kilometers long, surpassing Japan's 53.9-kilometer Seikan Tunnel. There are a few longer tunnels in existence, such as the 137-kilometer Delaware Aqueduct, but they all move water rather than people.

Comments

Meanwhile in the U.S.

[Lucas123]

A third of the nation's highways are in poor or mediocre shape. Massively leaking water and sewage systems are creating health hazards and contaminating rivers and streams. More than 6,000 of our nation's 115,000 bridges that are part of the national highway system are structurally deficient, and we can't even get a new tunnel built to link traffic from New York and New Jersey to Manhattan.

Re:Largest made by man

[rossdee]

We don't know what aliens have built on some other planet in some other solar system...

Re:Tunnels vs. Highways?

[chocolatetrumpet]

I'll be honest, the 40 minute savings doesn't really seem to be worth 10 billion dollars, until you realize that the USA could have built 70 of these things instead of the Iraq war...