3-021-622 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The new overland route to India: Modane [in France], at the north end of the tunnel under Mont Cenis, 1869. 'The village of Modane, on the Savoy side of the mountains...is the first station upon Mr. Fell's Mont Cenis Summit line...there is a spot half way up the mountain side, towards the left hand, where the mouth of the tunnel is marked by the rising of a small volume of smoke...The continuation of the railway from St. Michel to enter the tunnel can only be effected by making a circuit, after bringing the line up as far as Modane, and thence turning round the side of the hollow to a point beyond the steeple which appears in our View...The other end is at Bardonnèche, in the Piedmontese valley of the Dora...The entire length of the tunnel...will be 7½ English miles and 242 yards, exceeding by 4½ miles the longest railway tunnel existing on the continent of Europe...That [this Titanic enterprise] will be finished and used, in all probability for centuries - an abiding conquest of human intelligence and energy over the stupendous natural obstacles which had, throughout all previous history, precluded easy and rapid access to Italy from ancient Gaul or modern France - we have never had reason to doubt'. From "Illustrated London News", 1869.