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Engineers have proposed cutting journey times from the United States to the United Kingdom to 54 minutes, traveling on a maglev (magnetically levitated) train. The idea is that the train will travel through a tunnel floating in the Arctic Ocean. The tunnel will be 45.72 m below the surface of the sea and will be nearly 5,000 km long. The train will travel at 8,000 km/h (20 times the speed of today’s fastest trains). Giant anchors will be sunk into the bottom of the sea, in some places up to eight kilometers deep. 54,000 tunnel sections will be transported by special ship and will then be lowered into place and attached to the anchors. The tunnel will probably cost $12 trillion and need one billion tons of steel. It will take decades to build it. If it were to be built, it would be the largest and the most impressive engineering project in the history of the world.

Read the text about a new train tunnel. (The Gotthard Base Tunnel).

The St. Gotthard route, the first and shortest north-south passage through the mountains and an important European linkage lies in the centre of the Alpine region. The 9.3 mile St. Gotthard rail tunnel was opened in 1882, a twin 10.5 mile road tunnel was opened in 1980. Despite the tunnels, increasing rail and motorway traffic results in long delays through the mountains. For example during the peak summer tourist season, cars and trucks are often held up for more than 30 minutes.

The Gotthard Base Tunnel (GBT) will be the longest railway tunnel in the world. The tunnel will connect Zurich in Switzerland with Milan in Italy. The opening is scheduled for the end of 2017. The tunnel will be equipped with the European Train Control System enabling the trains to pass through it at speeds up to 250 km/h. According to AlpTransit Gottard, the company in charge of construction, work is on schedule. The final cost of the entire project is estimated at $10.3 billion USD. The new trains will use electricity. Some trains will carry trucks and cars. About 200-250 fast passenger trains will use the GBT per day. It will be one of history’s great engineering feats because many serious problems will be overcome in the construction including water inrushes.

Translate into English using the following word combinations:

Crossover tunnel, interstation tunnel, key tunnel, service tunnel, trial shaft, shale, gneiss

В Швейцарии строится базовый Готтардский тоннель, который станет самым длинным железнодорожным тоннелем мира. Он образует центральный участок новой дороги через Альпы и протянется через горный массив на 57 километров от Эрстфельда на севере до Бадио на юге. Общая длина двух основных тоннелей, разведочных шахт, соединительных тоннелей и участков обслуживания тоннелей составит 1535 км. Проходка ведется в условиях меняющейся геологии – гнейса, гранита и сланца. Тоннель планируется ввести в эксплуатацию в 2016 году, он сократит время пути от Цюриха до Милана примерно на час.