Five months after breakthrough on the east tube, the last few metres of the west tube of Saint Gotthard Tunnel between Faido and Sedrun have been cleared. This event is a landmark in the construction of Saint Gotthard Tunnel, the longest railroad tunnel in the world.

The new tunnel is 57 kilometres long and is being built by a consortium led by FCC subsidiary ALPINE. It will connect the Swiss cities of Erstfeld and Bodio.

TAT, the consortium to which ALPINE belongs, was awarded the 15-kilometre-long Bodio section and the 14-kilometre-long Faido section, two of the five sections into which the project was divided.

The contract is worth 1,258 million euro. It also includes the construction of the railroad infrastructure for the two single-track tunnels and their systems, plus the construction of eleven kilometres of surface line to reach the connection with the existing railway system.

When the tunnel is completely operational, Switzerland's north-to-south goods shipment capacity can be doubled to 40 million tons, and the time it takes to travel between the cities of Zurich and Milan will be shortened to two hours and 40 minutes, around an hour less than it takes at present. Future passenger trains will be able to arrow through the Alps at a top speed of 250 kilometres/hour.

FCC's experience building railroad tunnels.

FCC has participated in the construction of Pajares Tunnel and Guadarrama Tunnel, the most important Spanish railroad tunnels. They posed a terrific engineering challenge.

Pajares Tunnel is part of the project to build a new high-speed line between León and Asturias. It provides a way through the Cordillera Cantábrica mountains, reducing the trip from the current 83 kilometres to 50 kilometres.

It has two parallel tubes, each 24.9 kilometres long, making Pajares the sixth-longest railroad tunnel in Europe and the seventh-longest in the world. Its inner diameter of 8.50 metres is designed to accommodate speeds even greater than 250 kilometres/hour.

Guadarrama Tunnel is the main project on the new north/south railway connection to make travel easier between Spain's central plain and the northern half of the peninsula. It crosses the Guadarrama Mountains with a 28.2-kilometre-long twin-bore tunnel having an inner diameter of 8.50 metres. The tunnel was bored from both ends.

This was the first high-speed tunnel ever built without any working shafts interspersed along the way, and its length makes it the fourth-longest in Europe and the fifth-longest in the world.