At the
station we took fresh tickets to Lugano, travelling third-class to make
up for the extravagance of abandoning our former tickets, and then
waited for the train which was to take us to Italy. Yes, to Italy, that
wonderful country of which we had read so much, about which we had
acquired so much information, and had been so longing to see for the
last six months! The train, with its huge powerful engine, came slowly
into the station, looking very important, as if it knew that it was
conveying its passengers to the most famous country the world has ever
seen.
The entrance to the great tunnel is within a few yards of Geschenen
Station. When we consider that this is the longest tunnel in the world
(from Geschenen to Airolo, nearly nine and a half miles), and that the
rock which is pierced consists of such hard material as quartz and
granitic gneiss, the work may well claim to be one of the great
engineering feats of the century. The difficulty of supplying the
workmen engaged on the boring of the tunnel with air, necessitated the
building of huge air reservoirs (just outside Geschenen Station), which,
in addition, were used for setting the boring machines into motion. The
air was forced into these reservoirs by water supplied from the Reuss.
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