The new super mole has been delivered to complete the Italian tunnel: work finished in 2033. With all due respect to the social centres, the strategic infrastructure sees the finish line.
The steel caterpillar 235 meters long is ready to sink its teeth into the rock of Mont Cenis. It’s there Table which advances in a limbo-like silence and takes advantage of the forgettable climate to grind out kilometers in a suffocated and distant sturm und drang. But 2,000 meters below the mountain there is little to whistle about: 3,300 workers on 11 construction sites work day and night to cross the Alps and connect the Mediterranean Corridor with the Turin-Lyon. It will be the longest tunnel in the world: 57.5 km in line (the Gotthard tunnel is 500 meters shorter), two parallel railway tubes for high-speed trains destined to go straight, avoiding climbing between the ridges like Hannibal’s elephants and the coffee pots in films about the Rocky Mountains.
There Table gets to the heart of things and can’t do without the 3,200-ton steel caterpillar, a mole as long as two football fields or a destroyer, a gigantic cutter Tbm which crushes the rock with its 62 teeth, swallows the debris and, as it proceeds, secures the tunnels by injecting reinforced concrete. It was made in Germany by Herrenknecht (the Mercedes of mechanized excavations), will be transported and reassembled in Susa Valley. She and her younger sisters are decisive in completing a strategic work with 162 km of tunnels (28.8 percent excavated so far), which costs 14 billion (8.7 already financed) and is carried out by Italy and France through the company Telt (Euralpin Lyon-Turin Tunnel) 50 percent owned by the two countries. Now it can be made official: the light at the end of the tunnel will be seen in 2033. Also because Askatasuna and his supporters have other things to think about.
The steel giant ready to unite Italy and France in 2033
In the main construction site of Chiomonte a new phase opens. After the outdoor works, road junctions, ventilation shafts and accessory channels, we start with the 12.5 km tunnel of the Italian section under the eyes of the general director Maurizio Bufalini who has been holding the hand of the for 18 years Tablealmost like a daughter to him. And he has lived under guard for 13 years. “There Table it is the missing link of the Mediterranean Corridor from Spain to Ukraine, to connect territories with very high economic potential. Instead of going up the mountain we build a tunnel that pierces its base. Trains work poorly on gradients, which is why the tunnel Frejus it is completely obsolete; once the work is complete, 22 trains will pass per day compared to 6 today, at much higher speeds. The cutters are decisive. With a jackhammer and dynamite we would make two meters a day, with the Tbm we reach 15, eight times more in significantly shorter times.”
Nothing is left out here, other than political surrender. The project also pushes a lotEurope. For two reasons: to transfer the goods of a million trucks by rail with consequent ecological benefits and to create a continental metropolitan network that means cohesion and not division. Seen as a rape of the valley by an ideological narrative, today the Table it benefits from a bipartisan blessing. The engineer underlines Bufalini: «I have been here for 18 years and I must say that in the pendulum of the various governments there has always been support and collaboration. On the Italian side, the parliamentary majorities have always supported the project and this is decisive. The opposition becomes more violent when there is no one to defend us in Parliament.”
From conflict to dialogue: the metamorphosis of the Susa Valley
The leap in quality arrived in 2018 when also Giuseppe Contethen prime minister, understood the usefulness of the work and, beyond propaganda, decided to carry it forward. Today the support is unconditional and the government of Giorgia Melonithrough the Minister of Transport Matteo Salviniit is very present. Even in France, where governments have begun to alternate more than ours, there has always been the minister of reference Philippe Tabarotfavorable to the work. The days of sabotaged construction sites, burned machinery, threatened workers, social centers dancing among fires, justified by bad teachers like Erri De Luca (he even wrote a book about it) and Luca Mercalli, seem far away. Twenty years ago it was a popular revolt, then it became the vent of the ultra-left group. Extremely tough clashes, with the State managing the situation with a sense of reality, convinced of the strategic importance of the work.
The general director recalls: «Over time we have experienced two different oppositions. The politics of anarchists and social centers, and the merits of local professionals and politicians. The latter was useful, it helped us to improve the project, to make it more in tune with the territory. Before there were only emergencies and public order, today the debate is fruitful. For several years we had to survive without any dialogue with the municipalities, who refused to talk to us and did not even accept funding for compensation works, considering it cursed money. For six, seven years the climate has changed, we have institutional interlocutors interested in illustrating the needs of each municipality”.
Economic consequences and reclamation: Telt’s legacy on the territory
A decisive signal lies in the phrase with which the mayors sit at the table today: «Since the Table it’s done, let’s do it in the interests of our countries.” We discuss concrete matters, territorial offices have been opened to convey sensitivity and needs; an investment of 14 billion always has formidable benefits. An example: Salbertrandin the upper valley, had been disfigured for half a century by a landfill on the Dora Riparia with rocks containing asbestos. Telt reclaimed the area. To encourage local related activities, the company (owned through the group State Railways and in charge of managing the infrastructure for 99 years), has decided to divide the contracts into three bands: 150 million and above for large international companies, 30 million for very structured companies, 3-4 million for local companies.
«Sitting down and agreeing is an advantage for everyone», specifies the coach. «We have also signed an agreement with Piedmont region. The companies involved represent the needs, the Region, through the employment offices, makes qualified personnel available and trains those who are not yet qualified. In other words, a cutter like ours requires pilots with the professionalism and sensitivity of F1. They need to be trained, acquire professionalism and at the end of the contract they could work all over the world. Public companies do not need to do business, but to operate safely and offer concrete impacts on the territory.”
Two thousand meters below Alps steel caterpillars eat and burrow rock. With a surprising statistical objective for those who, like us, struggle to hang a picture on the wall: to make it pale Channel Tunnelmade by drilling sand just 50 meters under the sea. All this with discretion, now that the ball has passed from agit-prop to engineers. Bufalini he smiles: «We’re no longer in fashion and that’s a good thing». Today in Italy bridges cause more discussion than tunnels.
