Daylight fades as our vehicle enters the shaft. Ahead, a vast tunnel plunges into the mountain, fluorescent wall lights stretching into the haze ahead. Rumbling conveyor belts overhead bring debris from distant tunnel-boring machines towards the surface.
We are visiting the Brenner Base Tunnel, at 64 kilometers (40 miles) the longest railway tunnel in the world. Professor Konrad Bergmeister, CEO of the project, shows us the twin-bore tunnels which will, when the railway opens in 2025-26, carry high-speed trains transporting heavy goods vehicles (HGVs) primarily between Germany and Italy. The goal is to cut the number of trucks which travel on motorways through Austria via the Brenner pass. At present, I am told, an HGV passes over the Brenner through Austria every twelve seconds, 365 days a year.
I am always impressed by major civil engineering projects and the Brenner Base Tunnel is awe-inspiring. Once we are several miles underground, the air is warm (the deeper you tunnel, the warmer it gets) and thick with the smell of ammonia – the result of the tunnelling process. We view sections of tunnel which are still “raw” from the excavation, and sections which have been faced with concrete linings. We also see cathedral-sized emergency caverns where, in the event of a crisis, trains could stop for passengers to disembark and come to the surface.
I was grateful to Professor Bergmeister for showing me around the Brenner Base Tunnel and for explaining how it will work when complete. I wish him and his team every success in bringing the project to fruition. I look forward to the day when the beautiful mountain landscapes of Austria are relieved by the railway of at least some of the traffic which passes through today, and hope I can be one of the first to traverse the completed tunnel.