Crews have broken through both main tubes of the Brenner Base Tunnel at the border between Austria and Italy, roughly 1,400 meters below the Brenner Pass. The two breakthroughs occurred within about an hour on July 28, connecting the Austrian H53 Pfons-Brenner construction lot with the completed Italian H61 Mules 2-3 tunnels.
The meeting point also joined two different excavation approaches. Tunnel boring machines Virginia and Flavia advanced the Italian drives to the border, while the Austrian side used conventional excavation and drill-and-blast methods. According to the project team, the final survey deviation in the main tubes was even smaller than the few-centimeter deviation recorded when the exploratory tunnel connected in September 2025.
The project includes two 55-kilometer rail tunnels with an exploratory and service tunnel about 12 meters below them. Once connected to the existing Innsbruck bypass, the underground rail route will extend approximately 64 kilometers.
There is still substantial work ahead before trains begin operating, but the photos of crews shaking hands through two openings deep beneath the international border make this a milestone worth seeing.
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