The train is equipped with European Train Control System ( ETCS) technology which enables which enables the trains to run at speeds up to 250 km per hour.
The world gets a little smaller next month with the unveiling of the longest and deepest railway tunnel ever constructed — a feat of engineering under the Alps that will slash journey times across Europe.
The Gotthard Base Tunnel (GBT) in Switzerland is the product of 17 years of work, including cutting through solid rock at depths of up to 7,500 feet. It cost $12 billion — as well as the lives of eight workers.
Thanks to the micro-climates in the Alpine region, the weather is often different at either entrance. Inside, it contains enough copper cable to stretch from New York City to San Antonio, Texas.
The project also marks the removal of one of the continent's most stubborn natural barriers to trade and tourism: the lack of a high-speed route through a mountain range that lies at the crossroads of four countries.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President François Hollande and Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi are due to attend a ritzy ceremony to inaugurate the 35.5-mile tunnel on June 1.
Testing of new trains will begin within days, with scheduled services introduced from December.
"It is an incredible project, a huge achievement," said Claire Smith, a former geotechnical engineer who is now editor of Britain's Ground Engineering magazine.
Several existing tunnels take trains or cars and trucks under the Alps, but all are choked by traffic levels well above their design capacity.
The new route has much lower gradients that will allow passenger trains to travel at up to 155 miles per hour, reducing the journey times between Zurich, Switzerland, and Milan, Italy, from just over four hours to two-and-a-half hours.
The twin tunnels — one for each direction — will also more than double the haulage capacity on Switzerland's north-south freight corridor from 22 million tons a year to at least 44 million tons. That should reduce pollution in the Alpine air by switching goods from trucks to trains, as well as lowering the risk of fiery road tunnel crashes that have already claimed scores of lives.
The grand ambition of the GBT project is reflected in the scale of its construction. It required the excavation of 31 million tons of rock — enough to build the equivalent of five of Egypt's Giza pyramids — using giant boring machines that were the length of almost four NFL football fields.
