Beating the Alps

摘要

Just 10 years from now, travellers will be taking high-speed trains under the Alps. The mountain range that stretches from Zurich to Milan and dominated the history of the continent for thousands of years will become nothing more than a long gap between stations. This year, work will begin to drive a railway tunnel defiantly through the base of the mountains. Stretching 57 kilometres between the Swiss towns of Erstfeld and Bodio, the Gotthard Base Tunnel will be the longest and deepest in the world, taking passengers more than 2 kilometres down, to where heat from the Earth's depths raises the temperature to nearly 50℃.