Everybody talks about Gotthard Base Tunnel. But also under the Swiss Alps another huge tunnel is being constructed: Ceneri Base Tunnel in the Italian part of Switzerland.

Facts:

• Connects north and south of Ticino in Switzerland under Mount Ceneri (part of Swiss Alps)
• High Speed Railway tunnel for speeds up to 250km/h.
• Twin tube (each single track) tunnel with each tube 15.4 km long (or to be exact: the lengths of the east tube is 15.45km& the west tube is 15.28km).
• Each tube is separated by 40 meters from each other. And at every 325 meters connected by cross passage tubes.
• Main excavation method : Drill & Blast. Only for the 2.4km long adit tunnel, a main beam tunnel boring machine used from The Robbins Company (it bores at a rate of 18.5 meter per day)
• It will be feeding train traffic to the Gotthard Base Tunnel.
• It is a really deep tunnel: Around 2440 meters below the peak of the mountain.
• Geology: Hard Rock
• Project owner: AlpTransit Gotthard AG
• Around 1000 people work on the project.
• To be inaugurated in September 2020, 28 years after first gelological surveys carried out.

Swiss government site:

https://www.alptransit-portal.ch/en/overview/construction/events/ereignis/ceneri-the-third-base-tunnel/