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They are being built from the Alps to the Baltic, to bring cities closer together and reduce dependence on airplanes<\/p>\n
Europe wants to convince more people to ditch short-haul flights and opt for high-speed trains. While rail travel is gaining popularity, the continent is facing a major obstacle: geography.<\/p>\n
Mountains and seas naturally divide Europe and, unlike planes, trains cannot avoid them. For this reason, some of the most ambitious engineering projects in the world are opening giant tunnels under mountains and seas, with the aim of revolutionizing rail transport in the next decade.<\/p>\n
Austria, Italy, France and Denmark are investing billions of euros in record tunnels and new lines that will significantly shorten travel times and increase freight capacity.<\/p>\n
One of the most important projects is the Gotthard Base Tunnel in Switzerland, opened in 2016. With a length of about 57 kilometers and built to a height of more than 2 thousand meters under the Alps, it is considered the longest railway tunnel in the world.<\/p>\n
The project cost more than 11 billion dollars and shortened the journey between Zurich and Milan from four hours to just two and a half hours. This tunnel is part of the Swiss “NEAT” project, which aims to create faster and more efficient railway corridors between Northern Europe and Italy.<\/p>\n
Next to it, the L\u00f6tschberg Base Tunnel, opened in 2007, also works. The Swiss success has also inspired Austria. The most ambitious project there is the Brenner Base Tunnel, which is expected to open in 2032.<\/p>\n
It will connect Innsbruck in Austria with Bolzano in Italy through two parallel tunnels under the Alps. When completed, the journey between the two cities will be reduced from two hours to just 50 minutes.<\/p>\n
However, the project has encountered major difficulties. Work began in 1999 and the tunnel was originally expected to open in 2015. Today its cost has reached almost 10 billion dollars, almost twice as much as anticipated.<\/p>\n
Another important project is the Semmering Tunnel in Austria, which will improve connections between Vienna, Graz and Italy. This tunnel will partially replace the historic Semmeringbahn, considered the first railway line to cross the Alps in the 19th century.<\/p>\n
France and Italy are also building a giant new link between Lyon and Turin. At the center of this project is the Mont Cenis Base Tunnel, with a length of about 58 kilometers. The aim is to shift a large proportion of freight from road to rail, reducing pollution and heavy traffic.<\/p>\n
But this project has faced strong political and environmental protests, especially in Italy. Costs have steadily increased and completion has been pushed back to 2033. Furthermore, connecting lines in France and Italy have not yet been fully built, which risks limiting the tunnel’s effect.<\/p>\n
But the European tunnel revolution is not just taking place under the mountains. Denmark and Germany are building the Fehmarnbelt tunnel under the Baltic Sea, which will connect the two countries by road and rail.<\/p>\n
The project, worth about 9 billion dollars, is expected to open in the early 2030s and will significantly shorten trips between Copenhagen and Hamburg. However, experts warn that the infrastructure is not enough.<\/p>\n
International train travel in Europe often remains more expensive than low-cost flights. For this reason, the European Union must create more competition and more affordable tickets.<\/p>\n
The EU’s long-term objective is to create a high-speed rail network of 56,000 kilometers by 2050, connecting all major European capitals and cities.<\/p>\n
But the realization of this vision requires huge investments, political cooperation and overcoming the natural barriers that have divided Europe for centuries. square<\/p>\n
Source: prizrenpost<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" They are being built from the Alps to the Baltic, to bring cities closer together and reduce dependence on airplanes Europe wants to convince more people to ditch short-haul flights and opt for high-speed trains. While rail travel is gaining popularity, the continent is facing a major obstacle: geography. Mountains and seas naturally divide Europe […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":39128,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[666],"class_list":["post-39127","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world","tag-brief"],"views":4,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/prizrenpost.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39127","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/prizrenpost.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/prizrenpost.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prizrenpost.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prizrenpost.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39127"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/prizrenpost.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39127\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39129,"href":"https:\/\/prizrenpost.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39127\/revisions\/39129"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prizrenpost.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39128"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/prizrenpost.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39127"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prizrenpost.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39127"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prizrenpost.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39127"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}