People often feel frustrated with the daily travel they do to reach their desired destination. There is some good news for people moving between Denmark and Germany. Millions of passengers who travel from Rødbyhaven and Puttgarden via the 45-minute ferry service can now relax, as after more than a decade of planning, the dream of traveling between Denmark and Germany is expected to become a reality in 2029.
The longest tunnel in the world, the Fehmarenbelt Tunnel, is currently under construction, which began in 2020. The Fehmarenbelt Tunnel is not only long; It is a deep sea marvel. The structure will be placed in a trench dug 40 meters under the Baltic Sea.
18 kilometers under the sea: travel between Denmark and Germany in just 7 minutes by train
This tunnel, 18 kilometers long, makes it one of the largest high-budget infrastructure projects in Europe with a construction budget of more than 7 billion euros ($7.4 billion). After this project competition, passengers will be able to easily reach their desired destination in very few minutes. According to the technical specifications issued by the project engineers at Femern A/S, passengers will now be able to cover this sea journey in just 7 minutes by train and 10 minutes by car.
The Fehmarnbelt tunnel project is managed by Femern A/S
To manage a project of this size, the task was handed over to Femern A/S, the Danish state-owned company. The mission was clear to build an 18-kilometre sea link between the two countries. The company has transformed the Danish city of Rødbyhavn into one of the largest construction sites in Northern Europe. According to Femern A/S, the link will consist of two dual carriageways, which will be separated by a corridor and two electric railway tracks.
“Today, if you were to take a train ride from Copenhagen to Hamburg, it would take about four and a half hours,” says Jens Ole Kaslund, technical director at Femern A/S, the Danish state-owned company responsible for the project. “When the tunnel is completed, the same journey will take two and a half hours.
Why can’t a traditional tunnel be boring?
The traditional tunnel works perfectly with deep rocks, but the Danish and German seabeds are occupied by soft ground. The engineering applied to this project says that assembling this longest tunnel piece by piece using 79 standard concrete blocks, with each element measuring 217 meters long and weighing an incredible 73,000 tons, will allow the team to maintain speeds of 200 kilometers per hour for trains and 110 kilometers per hour for cars, respectively.
A 28-year plan to pay off the $7.4 billion debt
The Fehmarnbelt Tunnel is not only an engineering marvel, but it is also a huge financial project, with a total financial framework of €7.4 billion based on prices in 2015. The financial burden of this massive project falls squarely on the shoulders of Denmark, which has successfully secured the required loans through government guarantees. This huge financial project has been made possible through significant funding from the European Union, as the tunnel forms part of the Scandinavian-Mediterranean Corridor, which has been classified as a priority project.
To ensure the financial viability of this massive project, the Danish government plans to employ a user-pays approach, whereby the required loans will be refinanced by charging future car tolls and railway fees.
Economists and project managers at Femern A/S estimate that the required loans will be repaid within 28 years after the opening of the tunnel, ensuring the financial viability of this huge project, which constitutes the longest submerged tunnel in the world, and is a “green” tunnel for future generations.