Anton Anderson Memorial Tunnel
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The Anton Anderson Memorial Tunnel is a tunnel through Maynard Mountain near Whittier, Alaska and part of the Portage Glacier Highway. At 13,300 feet, it is the longest highway tunnel and longest combined rail and highway tunnel in North America. It was a 2001 recipient of an Outstanding Civil Engineering Achievement Award from the American Society of Civil Engineers.
The original tunnel was completed in 1943 and used for railroad traffic. In the mid-1960s, the Alaska Railroad began offering a shuttle service for automobiles, similar to Amtrak's Auto Train, which allowed vehicles to drive on to cars to be transported between Whittier and the former town of Portage. As traffic to Whittier increased, the shuttle became insufficient, leading in the 1990s to a project to convert the existing railroad tunnel into a one-lane, combination highway and railway tunnel. Construction on this project began in September 1998, and the combined tunnel was opened to traffic on June 7, 2000.
External link and reference
- State of Alaska website (http://www.dot.state.ak.us/creg/whittiertunnel/) about the tunnel