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" The Gotthard base tunnel is officially open.\u00A0Running 35.4 miles under the Swiss Alps to connect northern and southern Europe by train, the passageway is not only the longest tunnel in the world, but\u00A0also has the title of deepest tunnel, running as much as 1.4 miles below the surface in sections. The project cost more than $12 billion and construction work took almost two decades, but this was all within the timeframe and budget originally set out. Building the Gotthard required overcoming some tricky engineering challenges, as it runs underneath an older tunnel that was completed in 1980. More than 30 short tons of debris were excavated as workers blasted and drilled\u00A0through 73 different types of rock,\u00A0including stone\u00A0as hard as granite and\u00A0sedimentary materials soft as chalk. The rock was then used to make concrete to support the tunnel.\u00A0 Both freight goods and passenger travel stand to benefit significantly from the new tunnel. Goods crossing the Alps\u00A0on\u00A0a million semi-trucks each year will go by train through the tunnel instead. The tunnel will also cut the travel time from\u00A0Zurich and Milan down by an hour, to only two hours and 40 minutes.\u00A0 With the completion of the Gotthard, the Japanese\u00A0Seikan rail tunnel and the English Chunnel fall to 2nd and 3rd in the world&amp;#039;s tunnel rankings.\u00A0 "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/infrastructure/a21106/worlds-largest-tunnel-opens-in-switzerland/>