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The vast project has been compared with the (36) of the Egyptian Pyramids or China’s Three Gorges Dam. From this weekend, teams of engineers and explosives experts will start to build the world’s largest railway tunnel through the Alps in an (37) to bring northern and southern Europe closer together. "We have a (38) as the custodians of the Alps," said Romano Prodi, the Italian Prime Minister, before an opening (39) yesterday in Innsbruck, the starting point of the tunnel. The point is to protect the Austrian and Italian Alps from the devastating (40) caused by millions of cars and lorries that move southwards every year from Germany and Europe’s industrial heartland. Most of the trucks currently cross on the Brenner Pass motorway: two million vehicles, (41) Mediterranean holidaymakers and freight lorries. Fifteen years ago (42) 900,000 vehicles used the motorway. Again and again, (43) activists have tried to block the passes to protest against carbon emissions that are spoiling the Alpine air and wrecking communities. When the tunnels are completed in 2016 two railway lines through the Brenner should take up the strain. The two tubes, 39 miles long, will be able to take 400 trains a day. (44) . The link is expected to transform Europe in dozens of ways: (45) ; saving Alpine villages; transforming neglected north Italian resorts, and ensuring quick delivery of Mediterranean food to northern Europe. (46) . Road traffic, however, will continue to rise. The EU estimates it is set to increase by 55 per cent by 2020.