Hallandsås tunnel

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This article or section contains information about a planned or expected future tunnel.
It may contain information of a speculative nature and the content may change dramatically as the construction and/or completion of the tunnel approaches, and more information becomes available.

The southern construction site, one of the two tunnel entrances can be seen in the background.

The Hallandsås Tunnel (also known as the Hallandsas Ridge Tunnel or Scanlink) is a railway tunnel in Sweden under construction. The planned length is 8.5 km (5.3 miles). It will be located on the Västkustbanan (west coast) railway, on the part between Ängelholm and Halmstad in southwestern Sweden. When finished, it will connect the city of Oslo in Norway with Hamburg. Today there is a single track, curvy, steep railway over the ridge. The project was conceived by the European Round Table and the Swedish Railway Administration in the 1980s.

The construction began in 1992, and the traffic opening was originally planned for 1995. However construction was plagued by big problems with large amounts of water coming in from the rock (small amounts were planned for). Additionally, a scandal broke out when it was learned a poisonous sealing compound was used that killed nearby livestock. Construction was halted in 1997.

In 2005 construction resumed with a new completion date estimated at 2012. At the restart there were some delays which may again push back the opening date. The builders however, think they will make up for lost time eventually.

The cost was expected in 1992 to be 1 billion Swedish kronor (110 M€). The cost from 1992 to 1997 was in reality more than 2 billion SEK, for clearly less than half the tunnel length. Since the remaining cost when starting 2005 was calculated to be more than 4 billion SEK (430 M€), there has been much debate and hesitation whether to give up everything or start again. The total cost might reach 8 billion SEK (850 M€) in the end according to the latest calculation.