Now that 17 years of construction to build the world’s longest tunnel is ramping down, a massive project to expand Alpine infrastructure soon will launch.
A tunnel-boring machine is about to start the pilot bore on the Mont Cenis base tunnel—located between Saint-Martin-de-la-Porte, France, and Susa, Italy—on the new Lyon-Turin railroad. At 57 kilometers, it will match the current world record-holder, Switzerland’s twin-bore Gotthard base tunnel, which was formally taken over on June 1 by the Swiss Federal Railways.