Gibraltar Tunnel

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This article or section contains information about a planned or expected future tunnel.
It may contain information of a speculative nature and the content may change dramatically as the construction and/or completion of the tunnel approaches, and more information becomes available.

Info
Gibraltar Tunnel
Line
Location	Strait of Gibraltar
System	Railway tunnel
Start	2008
End	2025
Operation
Status	Project at planning phase
Opened	2025
Owner	Spanish and Moroccan government
Technical
Line length	39Km

Gibraltar Tunnel is a planned rail tunnel that will link Africa and Europe. The idea of a link via a bridge or a tunnel across the Strait of Gibraltar has existed since the 1980s.^[1]^[2] The Spanish and Moroccan governments have been jointly investigating the feasibility of a tunnel underneath the strait, similar to the Channel Tunnel between the UK and France.

The idea of a tunnel for petrol/diesel powered vehicles was renounced because of the currently insurmountable engineering challenge of ventilation to remove exhaust gases from automobiles from a tunnel some 14 kilometres (8.7 miles) long. A new three-year study for a railway tunnel was announced in 2003. A bridge was ruled out because of the depth of the strait.

The strait depth ranges between 300 and 900 metres (1000 and 3000 feet), and is about 14 kilometres (8.7 miles) wide at its narrowest point. A floating bridge was also not an option because of the number of ships passing through the Gibraltar corridor, and because of the strong currents of the strait. The project would be financed by two publicly owned companies in Spain and Morocco.

1 Original proposals
2 Planning
3 Technical aspect
4 See also
5 External links
6 References and notes

[edit] Original proposals

A shot of the Strait of Gibraltar from atop "The Rock" in the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar. The Rif Mountains of Morocco can be seen in the background.

A group of American and British engineers have studied the feasibility of building a bridge to span the Strait.^[3] Such a bridge would be of a combination suspension-truss design and its height, over 900 metres (3000 feet), would dwarf any existing bridge.

[edit] Planning

In December 2003, Spain and Morocco agreed to explore the construction of an undersea rail tunnel to connect their rail systems. The rail gauge of the tunnel would be 1435 millimetres, to match the proposed construction and conversion of significant parts of the existing broad gauge system to standard gauge.^[4]

In late 2006, Lombardi Engineering Ltd, a Swiss engineering and design company, was retained to build this railway tunnel.^[5] Preliminary studies should be finished by 2008. According to the company, the main difference between the construction of this tunnel and that of the Channel Tunnel, linking France and Britain, is the depth of the sea, but the geological conditions are also different. The complexity also concerns the geological layers under the strait which are horizontal, obligating the tunnel to cross through many different rock strata.^[6]

[edit] Technical aspect

The twin rail tunnel would be 40 kilometres long, and its construction could take 15 years. It will have twin rail tunnels and a service tunnel connecting the two. It is projected to carry 9 million passengers in the first year of operation, which is expected to start in 2025. No official figures about the cost of the project have been announced yet but old estimates talk about a minimum of €5bn.^[7]

The tunnel will link Cape Malabata near Tangier with Punta Paloma 40km west of Gibraltar.^[8] This link will be 300 metres deep. The original link was planned to link the two continents via the narrowest part of the strait but this idea was dismissed as it is 900 metres deep.