We love short cuts – opening of the world’s longest railway tunnel

Aside from the 57 km length, the numbers relating to the Gottardo railway tunnel are impressive: the drilling machine was a rolling factory with a total length of 410m. 28.2 million tonnes of excavated materials were removed. A significant part of this was then returned to the mountain as a total of 4 million m3 of concrete were added. The 290 km of tracks in total have been installed on 380,000 sleeper blocks.

325 trains should pass through the tunnel each day. Soon, speeds of up to 200 km/h will be possible for passenger trains. The passage through the tunnel will then take less than 20 minutes. Once the Ceneri tunnel is also complete, the journey between Zurich and Lugano will be 45 minutes quicker.

When the world’s longest railway tunnel opened with a big celebration, Pandinavia was present as the official merchandising partner and supporter. Pandinavia was responsible for the overall design, implementation and online sales as well as for sales during the opening ceremony. A great success for all involved.