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37-687: The Fréjus Tunnel may refer to one of two tunnels connecting Modane, France with Bardonecchia, Italy: the Fréjus Rail Tunnel , also known as the Mont Cenis Tunnel, completed in 1871. the Fréjus Road Tunnel , completed in 1980. Topics referred to by the same term [REDACTED] This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the title Fréjus Tunnel . If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change

74-492: A line from Modane to Chambéry with fork to Saint-Genis-d'Aoste / French border and to Aix-les-Bains and Annecy to the border with the canton of Geneva. Built routes: Overall, the network operated by the company was 274 km long Lines built by Victor Emmanuel Lines of Sicily. The Palermo-Bagheria trunk, inaugurated on 28 April 1863, was the first trunk of the Calabrian-Sicilian network. Total Km. 329, built by

111-542: A programme of works to both modernise and improve it. One specific and major alteration performed during this period was the enlargement of the bore to facilitate an equivalent loading gauge of French Lignes à grande vitesses (LGVs) throughout, thus enabling the tunnel to be traversed by wider rail vehicles, including container trucks on piggy-back wagons, as part of the Autoroute Ferroviaire Alpine . Various other enhancements were enacted, largely on

148-401: A tilt. Victor Emmanuel Railway The Victor Emmanuel Railway (VER) was created on 25 May 1853 by decree of Victor Emmanuel II , King of Sardinia . It was authorised to run through Savoy from Culoz , at the boundary with France , via Chambéry and then through Piedmont , from Susa to Turin and onward to Buffalora at the boundary with Austrian territory. The Piedmont section

185-824: Is a rail tunnel of 13.7 km (8.5 mi) length in the European Alps , carrying the Turin–Modane railway through Mont Cenis to an end-on connection with the Culoz–Modane railway and linking Bardonecchia in Italy to Modane in France . Its mean altitude is 1,123 metres (3,684 ft) and it passes beneath the Pointe du Fréjus (2,932 metres (9,619 ft)) and the Col du Fréjus (2,542 metres (8,340 ft)). Headed by

222-669: The Mont Cenis Pass Railway was briefly operational as a temporary link over the Mont Cenis Pass. It was closed shortly after the opening of the Fréjus Railway. This railway was itself described as an engineering achievement in its own right. The original tunnel portal on the French side at Modane was only used for little over a decade before falling into disuse after having been bypassed during 1881. It

259-648: The Mont d'Ambin Base Tunnel , is being planned as part of the Turin–Lyon high-speed railway project. The mountains of the Alps had posed long difficulties to any movements between Italy and its neighbours. Even with the arrival of new technologies such as the railway, the task of successfully traversing these peaks was viewed by numerous figures as a fool's errand, unfeasible to the point of being impossible. However, there

296-595: The 1850s by the Kingdom of Sardinia and named after its king, Victor Emmanuel II . Prior to 1860, Sardinia had included both Savoy and Piedmont. Even as it was being first envisioned, the Fréjus Tunnel, a necessary feature for traversing Mont Cenis , was viewed as being the primary engineering challenge of the Turin–Modane railway by far; the initial length of its gallery was 12.8 kilometres (8.0 mi), which

333-423: The French side of the tunnel. The first package of work focused on civil works, while a follow-up package focused on electrical systems. During the former, the track was replaced and the track bed lowered, sections of masonry were repaired where applicable, new safety recesses created, along with other civil works around the tunnel's exterior, including a reservoir . On 27 August 2023, a major landslide occurred on

370-608: The Fréjus Tunnel was officially opened to traffic. One foreign newspaper covering the occasion, the Michigan Argus , described the tunnel as being "one of the greatest, if not the greatest, engineering feat of the age". While further major tunnels through the Alps have since been constructed, it has remained active, the Fréjus Rail Tunnel being the oldest of the large tunnels through the Alps. Between 1868 and 1871,

407-696: The General Enterprise for the construction of the Calabrian-Sicilian railway lines to continue the works of the Messina - Syracuse and the Palermo - Catania (40 km of the Termini - Lercara trunk line). At the same time the construction of the various sections of the Ionian line (from Taranto to Reggio Calabria via Metaponto ) was also carried out, which began in 1866 but ended in 1875 after

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444-522: The Modane side in December 1857. It had been deemed impossible to increase the rate of excavation via intermediate shafts, thus the tunnel was driven entirely from either end. Serious challenges were encountered, including difficulty with providing sufficient ventilation. New methods of ventilation were successfully introduced, alongside other technological innovations. At the time, it was believed that, if

481-516: The Savoyard civil engineer Germain Sommeiller , construction of the tunnel commenced during August 1857, at a time when both ends of the future tunnel were in the Kingdom of Sardinia . From the onset, the tunnel was an ambitious engineering challenge, its gallery being twice the length of any tunnel previously constructed. Some figures believed that it would take as many as 40 years to complete;

518-684: The Victor Emmanuel company. Taranto-Metaponto-Crotone-Reggio Calabria. The works started in 1866 ended in 1875 after the State financed the completion and entrusted it to the Società per le Strade Ferrate Meridionali . In total 220 km, built in Sicily with state funding (completed after the failure of the Victor Emmanuel company) by the Società per le Strade Ferrate Meridionali. At the time of

555-690: The assignment to the Società per le Strade Ferrate Meridionali and direct financing by the state. The Victor Emmanel company, for various reasons related to the placement of shares on the Parisian market and in a liquidity crisis declared itself unable to continue the work undertaken on the Calabria-Sicilian lines in a further convention of 17 November 1867 with the Government of the Kingdom. The reason why foreign entrepreneurs (the capital

592-472: The concession for the construction and operation of the Calabrian-Sicilian railway lines, he replaced the Adami and Lemmi Company of the bankers Pietro Augusto Adami and Adriano Lemmi of Livorno. Adami and Lemmi had obtained the concession for the construction of the railways of southern and insular Italy by decree of the provisional government of Garibaldi on 25 September 1860 but later met with opposition from

629-624: The construction of the railway trunk lines Alcantara - Catania and Catania - Syracuse , and the works of the Catania Central Station to the company Beltrami Gallone and Co. In 1866, unable to carry on the work for financial reasons, the Victor Emmanuel Company put the Company Vitali, Picard, Charles and Co. into liquidation. On 29 November 1866, the Victor Emmanuel Company made a new agreement with

666-478: The development of car and truck transportation, the Fréjus Road Tunnel was built along the same path from 1974 to 1980. During the 2000s, the Fréjus Rail Tunnel underwent a series of works to modernise and improve it, including the increase of its bore to accommodate wider rail vehicles, such as container trucks on piggy-back wagons, as part of the Autoroute Ferroviaire Alpine . A future high-speed rail tunnel to improve transit capacity between France and Italy, called

703-707: The historical difficulties posed by the Mont Cenis pass. Accordingly, an extraordinary amount of defensive fortifications were constructed near to and around Modane. The Fort du Replaton and the Fort du Sapey were built in the late nineteenth century on the heights across the valley of the Arc. During the 1930s, the Alpine Line fortifications Ouvrage Saint-Gobain , Ouvrage Saint-Antoine and additional fortifications at Le Sappey were also constructed. A blockhouse along

740-524: The inauguration of the first Sicilian trunk line, Palermo-Bagheria (28 April 1863), there were three steam locomotives named Archimede, Diodoro and Novelli, built by Ansaldo . These machines, numbered SFCS 1-3 were, in 1885, sold to the Rete Mediterranea which numbered them RM 2764–2766. They finally became part of FS Class 113 of the Ferrovie dello Stato . For more recent information see

777-523: The line close to the tunnel at Saint-André à La Praz. All traffic through the tunnel, including the major TGV and Frecciarossa services between the Gare de Lyon and Milan Centrale / Porta Garibaldi were suspended. Repairs have been complicated and the line is not expected to re-open until spring 2025. Following the transfer of Savoy from Italy to France, the Fréjus Tunnel became a possible invasion route from Italy to France, particularly as it avoided

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814-436: The link to point directly to the intended article. Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Fréjus_Tunnel&oldid=679977654 " Category : Disambiguation pages Hidden categories: Short description is different from Wikidata All article disambiguation pages All disambiguation pages Fr%C3%A9jus Rail Tunnel The Fréjus Rail Tunnel (also called Mont Cenis Tunnel )

851-427: The mouths of the workings. There were separate pipes for water jets to remove waste from the holes. Each firing required up to eighty holes, taking between six and eight hours to drill. On 26 December 1870, French and Italian workers shook hands as the two teams met halfway: the galleries were aligned to about 40 centimetres (16 in) horizontally and 60 centimetres (24 in) vertically. On 17 September 1871,

888-537: The new Italian government. On 27 August 1863 he entrusted the construction of the new railway lines to Messrs Parent, Schaken and Co. which, on 25 September, subcontracted them to a further limited partnership formed by Messrs Vitali, Picard, Charles and Co. which had been established in Paris on 24 August 1862 and whose parenting partners were Parent, Schaken and Co. and the general partners Vitali, Picard, Charles, and Oscar Stevens. The latter company further subcontracted

925-437: The rail line to the east of the modern tunnel entrance has become a tourist attraction. The maison penchée ("leaning house") was built in 1939 to guard the tunnel entrance over an ammunition magazine connected to the tunnel by a gallery. During 1944, the retreating Germans deliberately exploded two rail wagons inside the tunnel entrance, causing the magazine to explode and blasting the blockhouse off its foundations, leaving it on

962-436: The sulphur traffic sometimes led to tortuous routes and lengthening of the overall layout with negative long-term effects. At the turn of the 1870s, the construction of the lines had halted, owing to the economic difficulties of the company, and the State had to intervene, with its own capital allocations, and entrusted the works to the Società per le Strade Ferrate Meridionali . Vittorio Emanuele railway track: concession for

999-508: The time Italy consisted of small states and many of these were under Austrian control but the King and his Prime Minister hoped to change this. The Piedmont section of the railway was completed in 1854. The Savoy section was completed to Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne in 1856. In between these two sections lay the Alps . Work on a tunnel began in 1857 and the first traffic ran through it in 1871. In stages between 1859 and 1861, most of Italy

1036-452: The total construction time was 13 years, the work having been greatly accelerated by the introduction of new technologies such as pneumatic drilling machines and dynamite . On 17 September 1871, the Fréjus Tunnel was opened to traffic for the first time, facilitating a new era of interaction between France and Italy. The Fréjus tunnel remains an important link in the connection between Rome and Paris , via Turin and Chambéry . Following

1073-540: The tunnel's construction had to rely upon traditional methods alone, it would have taken 71 years to complete. Three years following the start of the tunnel's construction, unanticipated political interactions led to the transfer of Savoy from Sardinia to France in 1860 under the Treaty of Turin ; the change of borders did not majorly disrupt the rate of work on the tunnel however. The tunnel took 14 years to construct, its rate of progress having been considerable increased via

1110-452: The use of new technical innovations such as pneumatic drilling machines powered by compressed air. Ten drills were mounted in a frame to bore shot holes to receive blasting powder charges, with those in outermost positions aligned in a slight divergence from the centreline to increase the effective width. Air at a pressure of 7  atm (710  kPa ) was conducted in iron pipes from hydraulic compressors , powered by local streams at

1147-479: Was a strong political desire amongst officials in both Italy and France to establish a railway between the two which, if completed, would launch a new era of transit and bring new commercial opportunities for both nations. In Italy, the Victor Emmanuel Railway , which included both the Culoz–Modane railway across Savoy and the Turin–Modane railway across Piedmont , was largely constructed in

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1184-501: Was built by the VER itself. The Savoy section was built by Thomas Brassey and various partners but quickly purchased by the VER. At the time both Savoy and Piedmont were ruled by Victor Emmanuel who was also Duke of Savoy and soon to be King of Italy . Victor Emmanuel was a constitutional monarch . He and his prime minister Count Camille Cavour were both keen to introduce railways in the interests of modernising and unifying Italy . At

1221-423: Was continued in partnership between France and Italy. The Victor Emmanuel Company obtained the concession for the Calabria-Sicilian lines by transferring to the State, under an agreement of 9 July 1863, its Turin - Susa and Turin - Novara railway lines on payment of an annual income of Lire 2,226,000. The company, chaired by Carlo Laffitte, had been established with entirely French capital. When he obtained

1258-399: Was decided to redirect the tunnel to a new entrance positioned to the east of the original, where the ground was considerably more stable. The surplus portal was left in place as a monument, and has since become a minor tourist attraction. A steam locomotive has been placed in the disused portal, which is presently located adjacent to a road. During the 2000s, the Fréjus Rail Tunnel underwent

1295-425: Was mostly French) were so interested in new infrastructure was determined by the fact that they could connect to sulphur -rich mining centres. At that time, Sicily was the largest producer in the world of the mineral (a record that was to pass to Texas a few decades later) and it was important to be able to transport it to the ports of embarkation in Palermo , Porto Empedocle , Licata and Catania . Catering for

1332-498: Was twice as much as the previously longest tunnel in the world at that time. The Savoyard civil engineer Germain Sommeiller was appointed to head this undertaking. Considerable backing for the endeavor was forthcoming from individual Italians, not only in terms of funding, but also technical expertise, public endorsements, and labourers. During August 1857, drilling work commenced on the Bardonecchia side; activity started on

1369-630: Was united under Victor Emmanuel but Savoy and Nice were ceded to France in return for her help. In 1862 the Savoy line was extended to Saint-Michel-de-Maurienne and in 1867 the Savoy part of the system was transferred to the PLM . On the Italian side the line was transferred to the Piedmont State Railway. The Victor Emmanuel Railway Company had served its purpose and the work on the line

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