July 25, 2007

Europe | Switzerland, Germany, Italy

Time Travel

By Tiffany Hawk

The Alps are but a minor obstacle for a new high-speed train route that connects Italy and Germany.

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The Swiss have taken their legendary obsession with time to new lengths by spending eight years and $3.5 billion — all to save 90 minutes. Beginning December 9, the journey from Germany to Italy will be cut from three-and-a-half hours to less than two when a high-speed train starts running deep under the Alps through the just-finished Loetschberg Tunnel — the world’s third longest. It will also get you from Bern to Alpine ski resorts such as Zermatt and Courmayeur in exactly half the time. In case you’re wondering, that would be precisely 55 minutes. The herculean project will also ease traffic and cut pollution through the heavily congested mountains — moving over 4,000 heavy trucks off the road and onto cargo trains. Plus, passengers are promised uninterrupted cell-phone coverage, even at 6,500 feet underground.

But apparently the Loetschberg wasn’t quite enough, because the Swiss are still digging — a parallel tunnel. It may take 2,000 workers using the world’s biggest boring machine 24-hours a day for the next 11 years, but when the 35-mile Gotthard Base Tunnel is completed in 2018, they’ll have the longest tunnel in the world. More importantly, the Swiss will have squeezed out another 90 minutes — Zurich to Milan in two-and-a-half hours instead of four.