Hallandsås Tunnel
The red, dotted line shows the tunnel. The red-white dashed line shows new, connecting railway, and the black-white dashed line shows the previous railway stretch. | |
| Overview | |
|---|---|
| Line | West Coast Line |
| Location | Båstad Municipality, Skåne County |
| Status | Open |
| Start | Förslöv 56°21′43″N 12°48′20″E / 56.36194°N 12.80556°E |
| End | Båstad 56°25′28″N 12°53′20″E / 56.42444°N 12.88889°E |
| Operation | |
| Work begun | 1992 (restart 2003) |
| Opened | 8 December 2015 |
| Traffic | Railway |
| Technical | |
| Length | 8.7 km (5.4 mi) |
The Hallandsås Tunnel (Swedish: Hallandsåstunneln), also known as the Hallandsås Ridge Tunnel or Scanlink, is a railway tunnel in Sweden. It connects the northern and the southern sides of the Hallandsås geological formation (a horst). The length is 8.7 km (5.4 mi) (8,722 metres (28,615 ft) in one bore, 8,710 metres (28,576 ft) in the other). It's utilised by the West Coast Line, on the section between Ängelholm and Halmstad in southwestern Sweden. It has improved the connection between the cities of Gothenburg, Sweden, and Copenhagen, Denmark. In the longer term it will be a key component in the proposed Oslo to Hamburg high speed rail link via Gothenburg, Malmö and Copenhagen.
The project was troubled by construction difficulties caused by groundwater ingress, and a scandal when dangerous sealant materials were used causing workers to become ill and killing local fish and cattle. These caused the project to be halted from late 1997 to 2005, and resulted in large cost over-runs. The project was finished in December 2015, over 23 years after start of construction.