Passengers included the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, the French president, François Hollande, and the Italian prime minister, Matteo Renzi.
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Once it opens for commercial service in December after 17 years of construction work, the two-way tunnel will take up to 260 freight trains and 65 passenger trains per day, the Associated Press reported.
The Gotthard Base Tunnel is now the world’s longest tunnel – connecting Switzerland, Italy and Germany beneath through the Swiss Alps.
Base tunnels enable flatter and shorter rail routes so trains can travel at higher speeds and pull more weight.
The tunnel is longer than Japan’s 53.9 km Seikan rail tunnel and also the 50.5 km Channel Tunnel, which links the United Kingdom and France, placing them respectively into second and third place.
Alcatel-Lucent Switzerland is responsible for providing telecommunications and tunnel control technology for the project, and has selected CommScope for providing mobile coverage inside it.
The passage runs from Erstfeld in the central Swiss canton of Uri, to Bodio in the country’s southern Ticino canton.
The project was voted for by Swiss voters in a referendum in 1992. In addition, at 2,300 m (7,546 ft) below the surface of the mountain in places, it is also the world’s deepest rail tunnel.
Fittingly for a project billed as Switzerland’s “construction of the century”, the Gotthard Base Tunnel was inaugurated amid colorful, sometimes surreal scenes, with visiting dignitaries treated to costumed dancers, fireworks and plenty of yodeling and alphorns.
It has taken 17 years to construct at a cost of $12 billion.
For the Swiss, conquering the Alps – in this case, with a 1,345-foot boring machine, unlike the elephants used by the Carthaginian general Hannibal in his wars against Rome – is something of a national obsession. At 12:18 pm the first two trains from each portal set off on their journey through the tunnel.
“I would like to see what binds us and understand how to use it. That is what the Gotthard Tunnel symbolises”, Merkel said.
About 2,600 workers have been involved in the construction of the tunnel, with nine losing their lives in the process.
According to the Swiss rail service, it took 43,800 hours of non-stop work by 125 labourers rotating in three shifts to lay the tunnel’s slab track.
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Now the completed tunnel – delivered on time and within budget – will create a mainline rail connection between Rotterdam in the Netherlands and Genoa in Italy. The tunnel is to shave 45 minutes off the trip from Zurich to Lugano, Switzerland.
