APPENNINES TUNNEL

Evening Star, Issue 20148, 12 April 1929, Page 6

APPENNINES TUNNEL

GREAT ENGINEERING FEAT POWER FROM FALLS. The world’s second longest tunnel has just been bored in Italy. Next year trains will be running beneath the Appenuiue Mountains between Rologne ami Florence. 'The Simplon tunnel between Switzerland and Italy is the longest tunnel yet made by man. It is IhR miles in length. The Appennine tunnel is 11m U2t3,yds in length, but as an engineering teat it far surpasses the older construction, for it was necessary to sink two intermediate vertical shafts through the mountain Irom the top before the tunnel could be finished. The route in which the tunnel lies lias hitherto been one of the most difficult in Italy. Trains doing a journey of eighty miles took three hours, as they bad steep gradients to .surmount and many curves to travel over. Now the journey by means of the “ Galleria dell ’Appeimino,” as it is called, will take only an hour and a-half. The line has altogether thirty tunnels and forty-one bridges, probably a record for such a short distance. Rub in recent years Italian engineers have been doing remarkable feats in engineering, and the piercing of the Appennines may be regarded as their greatest achievement. The wort: began in lG)b. but was, of course, interrupted by the war, and not resumed until 19211. Since then 7.1KK1 men have been engaged on it, and rapid progress has been made. It is intended to work all the trains by electricity, and the power will be brought from the waterfalls in tho mountains.

Italy, unknown te the outer world,’ Las been making wonderful strides m developing “ white coal ” in recent years. She has no ordinary coal, and imports it largely from Britain. But her exchange has made this more costly than over, and in consequence the development of electrical power has become a necessity. Now if you travel from Milan to Florence, a route taken in the tourist season by thousands of Canadian visitors, you sec the classic Appennines surmounted everywhere with great electric towers carrying a maze of wires for power and light. Towns are rapidly laying down electrical equipment, and in a few years the greater part of Italy will he as up to date as Canada in its use of electricity. The same is true of France. The French Government is spending great sums in the encouragement of the use of electrical power, and a recently published map of the electrical possibilities of the country shows that in twenty years time private and governmental enterprise will have electrified all towns and villages and railways. Franco will then be independent of coal supplies for power purposes, even as Italy intends to he.