Helsinki-Tallinn tunnel

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Tunnel plan with possible routes
Rail Baltica (light blue) in the European concept

The Helsinki-Tallinn tunnel (also Talsinki Tunnel ) is a tunnel project between the Finnish capital Helsinki and the Estonian capital Tallinn .

Transport geographic aspects

As part of the Rail Baltica , a connection between Berlin and Helsinki would ultimately be established. The travel time between Helsinki and Tallinn should be 30 minutes. So far, the fastest ferries have taken 1 hour and 40 minutes to cross the Baltic Sea . The land connection through Russia is about 800 kilometers long.

Costs / cooperation with China

The first publicly financed studies date from 2016. According to previous calculations, the construction costs should amount to 12.5 billion euros. Most of the funding is to be taken over by the European Union .

The Finnish internet entrepreneur Peter Vesterbacka ( Rovio Entertainment ) has been pursuing the project with his company Finest Bay Area Development since September 2017 . According to this, trains starting from Espoo are to cross under the Gulf of Finland over a length of around 80 kilometers . Overall, the tunnel should have a length of 100 kilometers. The Chinese financial holding Touchstone Capital Partners has promised Versterbacka 15 billion euros. The project should thereby become part of the New Silk Road . A contract was signed with the China Railway Group as the execution partner. With the earth that will be excavated during the construction work, an artificial island is to be raised, on which up to 50,000 people are to live. Chinese is said to be one of the lingua franca here. Vesterbaka plans to complete the project by the end of 2024 Template: future / in 4 years.

Technical implementation

The project is to be built with the European gauge (1435 mm), not the local gauge 1524 mm. This is intended to enable connection to the European high-speed network.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Gwyn Topham: Helsinki-Tallinn tunnel proposals look to bring cities closer than ever The Guardian, January 6, 2016.
  2. ↑ Helsinki-Tallinn-Tunnel: preliminary contract to usher in the next step nordisch.info, July 9, 2019.
  3. ↑ A vision of twin cities - study moves ahead on Helsinki-Tallinn tunnel yli.fi, 24 August 2016.
  4. ↑ Nathanael Häfner: How the Angry Birds maker wants to build the longest tunnel in the world Spiegel Online, September 7, 2019.
  5. ↑ Sebastian Balzter: The Helsinki Tunnel Builder faz.net, April 6, 2020.