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Discover the longest railway tunnels in the world
Seikan Tunnel, Japan
The 53.85 km long Seikan Tunnel in Japan is the longest and deepest railway tunnel in the world. It runs through the Tsugaru Strait and connects the islands of Hokkaido and Honshu.
It was built 100m below the seabed and includes a 23.3km submarine section. It was officially opened in March 1988 and is used for the operation of express trains.
The tunnel was sponsored by Japan Railway Construction, Transport and Technology Agency and is operated by JR Hokkaido. The internal height and width of the tunnel are 7.85 m and 9.7 m respectively.
The tunnel was built using 168,000 tons of steel, 1.74 million cubic meters of concrete and 2,860 tons of explosives. Seikan Construction Bureau was the main contractor. Two stations, Tappi Kaitei and Yoshioka Kaitei, are located in the tunnel.
Channel Tunnel, UK
The 50.5 km long Channel Tunnel, located on the English Channel on the border of the United Kingdom and France, is the longest undersea rail tunnel in the world. It connects Folkestone in Kent, UK, with Coquelles in Pas-de-Calais, France. The tunnel opened for service in 1994 after almost six years of construction and cost $14.7 billion. It recently won the Global Engineering Century Award from the International Federation of Civil Engineering Consultants, FIDIC.
The two terminals are connected by three tunnels, including a 9.3 km underground tunnel in the UK, a 38 km undersea tunnel and a 3.2 km underground tunnel in France. In addition, there is a service tunnel that provides access for maintenance and emergency response teams. The three rail tunnels have a diameter of 7.6 m, while the service tunnel has a diameter of 4.8 m. A total of 11 tunnel boring machines (TBM) dug the tunnel, which runs 40 m under the English Channel.
The UK’s first high-speed rail line, High Speed ​​1, connects central London to the European rail network via the Channel Tunnel. Eurotunnel (ET), a joint bi-national company formed by Channel Tunnel Group (UK) and France Manche (France), owns and operates the tunnel.
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Lötschberg Base Tunnel, Switzerland
The Lötschberg Base Tunnel, built through the Alps in Switzerland, is the third longest railway tunnel in the world. The 34.6 km long tunnel allows BLS passenger and freight trains to use the Lötschberg line. The tunnel consists of a ballastless track on which trains travel at 250 km/h.
The tunnel construction began in April 2005 and was completed in 2006. The tunnel was opened for full-scale operations in December 2007. About 20% of the tunnel was constructed using tunnel boring machines and the rest using conventional blasting techniques. The excavated material in the tunnel amounted to 16 million tonnes.
The tunnel was designed with two single-track tubes, but was only half-finished because only one of the tubes was fully equipped, while the second tube was left largely as a shell. The two tubes are connected by cross tunnels at 333 m intervals.
Guadarrama Rail Tunnel, Spain
Guadarrama is the longest twin-tube railway tunnel in Spain and the fourth longest in the world. The 28.4 km long tunnel was dug through the Sierra de Guadarrama mountain range for the high-speed railway between Madrid and Valladolid. The two parallel tunnels are 30 m apart, measured from their central axes.
The tunnel was built between 2002 and 2007 using TBMs built by Herrenknecht and Wirth. The Spanish state-owned company Administrador de Infraestructuras Ferroviarias (ADIF) sponsored the project. FCC Construction built the northern section of the tunnel.
The inner diameter of the tunnel is 8.5 m, while the diameter of the excavation is 9.45 m. Connecting corridors placed every 250 m connect the two tunnels. An emergency room in the middle of the tunnel can accommodate up to 1,200 people.
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Taihang Tunnel, China
Taihang Tunnel, located in the Taihang Mountains of China, is the fifth longest railway tunnel in the world. The 27.8 km long twin-tube tunnel was built as part of the Shijiazhuang-Taiyuan Railway Project to cross the Taihang Mountains. Construction of the tunnel was completed in December 2007.
The tunnel runs through Yue Xiao, the main ridge of the Taihang Mountains, with a maximum coverage of 445 m. The left track has a length of 27,839 m, while the right track is 27,848 m long. The distance between the two tubes is 35 m. The tunnel was designed by Pöyry.
Hakkoda Tunnel, Japan
The Hakkoda Tunnel, at 26.45 km in length, is the longest land-based double-track railway tunnel in Japan and the sixth longest in the world. It is located at the northern end of Hakkoda Mountain between Tenmabayashi-mura and Aomori City in Aomori Prefecture, Japan.
The tunnel is part of the Tohoku Shinkansen railway line and was sponsored by Japan Railway Construction, Transport and Technology Agency (JRTT). It was built as part of the extension of Tohoku Shinkansen from Hachinohe to Shin Aomori.
The tunnel construction began in August 1998 and was completed in February 2005 using the New Austrian Tunnelling Method (NATM). The Kajima joint venture built the Otsubo section of the tunnel.
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Iwate-Ichinohe Tunnel, Japan
The Iwate-Ichinohe Tunnel in Japan is the seventh longest railway tunnel in the world. Also built as part of the Tohoku Shinkansen railway line, it has a total length of 25.81 km.
Construction of the tunnel began in August 1991. The tunnel was completed in 2000 and operations started in 2002. However, tunnel services were suspended following an earthquake in 2011.
The tunnel design has a single bore double track with a horseshoe shape. It is 9.8 m wide and 7.7 m high in cross section. Construction methods used include the New Austrian Tunnelling Method (NATM), drill and blast or mechanical excavation, and full face or bench cut methods.
Daishimizu Tunnel, Japan
The 22 km long Daishimizu Tunnel is the eighth longest railway tunnel in the world. It is located on the Joetsu Shinkansen line in Japan. It has shortened the journey time between Niigata and Tokyo to about one hour and forty minutes.
Drilling and blasting methods were used to build the tunnel through the Mikuni Mountains. The steep geography of the site required the construction to be divided into six sections by means of access shafts. Evacuation points were created less than 10 km away.
During the construction of the tunnel, water was naturally found. There was also a fire accident during the construction of the tunnel, in which 16 workers died.
Wushaoling Tunnel, China
Wushaoling Tunnel, the ninth longest railway tunnel in the world, has a total length of 21.05 km. It is located in Gansu Province in China and was built as part of the Lanxin (Lanzhou-Xinjiang) high-speed railway.
The tunnel construction began in November 2002. The tunnel was built using the New Austrian Tunnelling Method in a geologically challenging fault zone. Lingyuan Iron supplied 4,360 tons of steel for the tunnel construction.
The tunnel comprises two bores 40 m apart. It is bored to a maximum depth of 1,100 m. It is designed for a maximum speed of 160 km/h.
Geumjeong Tunnel, South Korea
The 20.3 km Geumjeong Tunnel is the tenth longest railway tunnel in the world. It is part of the Seoul-Busan high-speed railway. The tunnel, bored through Geumjeong Mountain, connects Nopo District with Busanjin Station in Busan.
Geumjeong is also the longest railway tunnel in South Korea. It is more than 300 meters underground. It is 14 meters wide and 12 meters high. Korea Rail Network Authority owns the tunnel.
Construction of the tunnel was carried out in three sections, which were fully completed in 2009. The first two sections were opened in 2008. The final section, connecting Nopo-dong and Hwamyeong-dong, was completed in February 2009.
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“The world’s longest railway tunnels” was originally created and published by Railway Technology, a brand of GlobalData.
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