Koralmtunnel breakthrough part two

In my opinion one of the most important if not even the most important infrastructure project in Austria reached another milestone yesterday: Works on the tunnel connecting Styria and Carinthia through Koralm have finally had their second literal breakthrough. Now, 18 years after the first test drills, both tunnel tubes, around 33km each, are finally actual tubes ๐Ÿ˜„

Position of the tunnel (simplified, base layer: Openstreetmap)

This tunnel is part of a huge project that should drastically improve train connections from Austriaโ€™s capital Vienna to the two souther states, trimming the travel time from Klagenfurt (capital of Carinthia) to Vienna through that and another tunnel connecting Styria and Lower Austria from around 4 hours to 2 hours 40 minutes! For me personally the travel time from Graz (Styrian capital) and Klagenfurt will be more than cut in half (from 2h to 45 minutes)! Just 5 more years to wait ๐Ÿ˜ฃ Similarly, Iโ€™ll be able to get to Vienna much quicker once the Semmering-Basis-Tunnel will be completed (and the rails through it, scheduled for 2027).

Letโ€™s see if those tunnels will also fix the non-existing network reception around Semmering ๐Ÿ˜‚