It will be a heavy, time-consuming and expensive project that will cost between 15 and 20 billion euros. The tunnel will be the longest in the world – almost twice as long as the Channel Tunnel – and will extend to around 100 kilometers.
An opportunity for Finland
Project manager FinEst Bay Area Developmentas well as a Finnish businessman and computer games Angry Birds creator Peter Westerbacka. It outlines the direction to the public Railway supplier magazine and a Polish train construction company Nakolei.
The main goal of the Helsinki-Tallinn tunnel is to integrate Finland into the European train network, which will also be able to be very successfully connected to the rail project of the future Baltic States – Rail Baltica. When the project is completed, Rail Baltica high-speed trains will also be able to reach Finland through the tunnel. Looking for FinEst according to collected data and forecasts, currently about eight million travelers cross the Gulf of Finland per year, but after the construction of the tunnel it could be about 30 million travelers per year. The tunnel will be built to handle the growing number of passengers and reduce travel time from at least two hours to 30 minutes.
As written in several declassified FinEst documents, two parallel tunnels will be built – one will be for passenger travel, and the other will be for import and export. 60 specialized construction machines will be used to build them. After Euronews according to available data, the project will include the construction of two artificial islands, each of which will be able to accommodate up to 50,000 people. The islands are intended for carrying out construction work and for temporary accommodation of people involved in the construction of the tunnel. There is no information on whether the islands will be preserved after the completion of the tunnel.
How far will you go?
“Although the plans for the Helsinki-Tallinn tunnel have been overshadowed by more serious problems, the long-term plan and the strategic importance of the tunnel have not changed,” Estonian Finance Minister Rīna Sikuta told the Estonian press at the end of 2022. Regarding its strategic importance, she said that “in the current situation of Estonia and Finland, there is indeed a strategic need to connect the two capitals. When Rail Baltica will be completed and freight routes will be reconfigured – this tunnel could be Rail Baltica extension’. Later, Sikuta mentioned that nothing has changed in the long-term plans, but the short-term plans have not yet been implemented. On November 7, 2022, Sikuta met with Peter Westerback, who promised to complete the tunnel in just a few years. It is not known how long it will take, but it is planned to be completed by the beginning of 2030.
In which FinEst in the created model, it was mentioned that freight trains would travel in the tunnel at 200 km/h, and passenger trains – from 220 km/h to 250 km/h. Passenger trains would run up to 30 times a day, the cost of one ticket could be from 18 to 25 euros.
As Finland uses a 1524 mm gauge (which is slightly wider than other European countries), the train runs from Rail Baltica to Helsinki, the European track standard of 1500 mm will have to be adjusted in the tunnel and further from Helsinki to other nearby Finnish cities.
2023-07-30 02:15:02
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