In Denmark, the construction of the longest immersed tunnel in the world is progressing steadily. It will connect the country with Germany from 2029. The so-called Fehmarnbelt tunnel will be 18 kilometers long and will make journeys to and from Scandinavia much shorter.
The passage will consist of tunnel sections that will be sunk into the Baltic Sea and will therefore not be drilled into the seabed like the tunnel under the English Channel. The connection between the German island of Fehmarn and the Danish island of Lolland will be the longest combined road and rail tunnel in the world.
Ferry service
Currently, traffic must use the Puttgarden-Rødby ferry service or take an alternative route via Flensburg and Kolding, on the German A7 and the Danish E45 and E20. “A train journey from Copenhagen to Hamburg with the new connection no longer takes 4.5 hours, but only 2.5 hours,” said Jens Ole Kaslund, technical director at Femern A/S, the Danish state-owned company responsible for the project. , to CNN. The tunnel will save approximately one hour per car.
There is now another ferry between Germany and Denmark, which should take about 45 minutes if all goes well. However, the waiting time can be considerable, especially in the summer. When the tunnel is finished, the crossing will take 7 minutes by train and 10 minutes by car. About 3000 people are needed to build the tunnel. The construction budget is about 7 billion euros.
Ready in 2029
Construction started in 2020 on the Danish side and in 2021 on the German side. Trench dredging has recently started. The construction of the tunnel itself will start this year. The tunnel parts require an amount of steel equivalent to about fifty Eiffel Towers, writes Travel+Leisure. Both the tunnel and the track doubling are paid back from the toll revenue generated. Ferry services are expected to be discontinued. The tunnel should be completed in 2029.
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