World's Longest Road Tunnel E-mail
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Laerdal - World's longest Road Tunnel

From the north portal (Laerdal)of the Laerdal tunnel in November 2000. The first foreigners
to cross Laerdal tunnel. The "Laerdal Tour", from Milano (Italy) to Laerdal through Austria,
Germany, Denmark and Sweden, by a Renault Espace, was organized by the Italian magazine
"Automobilismo". For statistic curiosity, Eugenio A.Merzagora was the first foreign driver through
the World's longest road tunnel.
This is the midway point in the laerdal tunnel, the 24,5 kilometers long tunnel has 3 of these
colored caves. They are designed to break up the mind numbing monotony that sets in during
the 20 minute drive, the other two are blue. The rooms are truly astounding, beautifully lit, and
the acoustics are just plain freaky. I wanted to make a 360 pano, but standing in the middle of
the road with a tripod just seemed like a very bad idea. Construction started in 1995 and was
completed in 2000, thus succeeding the Gotthard Road Tunnel as the longest road tunnel in the
world. The tunnel is a part of the E16 main route between Oslo and Bergen.

The Zhongnanshan (Zhongnan mountain) tunnel

Zhongnanshan Tunnel, or Qinling Zhongnanshan Tunnel, is the longest two-tube road
tunnel in the world. It is also the second longest road tunnel in the world. (Following
Lærdalstunnelen in Norway) The 18,040 metres long tunnel, crosses under the Zhongnanshan
(Zhongnan Mountain) in Shaanxi Province, China. It opened on January 20, 2007, becoming
part of the Xi'an-Ankang Highway between the Changan and Zhashui counties. The cost to
build this tunnel was 3.2 billion Yuan (US$410 million). 
The Zhongnanshan (Zhongnan mountain) tunnel, which passes through the Qinling mountains in
northwest China's Shaanxi province, opened on 20th January, 2007. The 2 x 18,020 m-long
Zhongnanshan tunnel is on the Xi'an-Ankang highway, which is part of a national highway linking
Baotou in Inner Mongolia in North China to Beihai in Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region in South
China. It starts in Qingcha, Xi'an City and ends in Yingpan, Shangluo City. It is the longest road
tunnel in Asia and the second in the world after the 24.5 km Aurland-Laerdal single-tube tunnel
between Oslo and Bergen in Norway, opened in November 2000. The tunnel will play an important
role in reducing travelling times in the Shaanxi province, cutting the drive from Xi'an to Zha Shui
County Town from three hours to 40 minutes. As a main connection between the Yellow River
economic belt and the Yangtze River delta economic circle, it will greatly reduce transportation
costs and further promote the economic development alongside the highway. 

Each 6 m-high, 10.92 m-wide tube carries two lanes. The distance between the centre lines of
the two bores is 30 m. The maximum overburden above the tunnel is 1,640 m. The section
where the overburden exceeds 1,000 m is about 4 km. There are also three ventilation shafts.
Construction began in March 2002. Drill/blast tunnelling was used, with
machinery made in China. Geology consisted of composite gneiss and granite. Dump trucks
were used for the mucking-out. Four Chinese companies were involved in the construction:
the No. 5 Construction Bureau, the Tunnel Engineering Bureau of China, the No. 12 Construction
Bureau and the No. 18 Construction Bureau. Construction has been supervised by the First
Highway Survey & Design Institute of China.The tunnel is equipped with lights that show
different colours and patterns to make drivers feel more alert. Each tunnel is decorated
with artificial plants as well as images of clouds projected over the ceiling at certain sections
in order to reduce the eye strain of drivers. The cost to build this tunnel was CNY3.2 billion
or USD410 million 

 
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