The Apennine Base Tunnel is a railway tunnel 18.507 km, (11.5 miles), long on the Direttissima line (Bologna-Florence railway line) connecting Florence

Florence

Florence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the province of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with approximately 370,000 inhabitants, expanding to over 1.5 million in the metropolitan area....

 and Bologna

Bologna

Bologna is the capital city of Emilia-Romagna, in the Po Valley of Northern Italy. The city lies between the Po River and the Apennine Mountains, more specifically, between the Reno River and the Savena River. Bologna is a lively and cosmopolitan Italian college city, with spectacular history,...

, in central Italy

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

. The tunnel was opened on 21 April 1934 shortening the rail connection by 35 km compared to the old railway line over the mountain range. In the middle of the tunnel there is a switch-over and a 450m long non-public station accessible by an adit

Adit

An adit is an entrance to an underground mine which is horizontal or nearly horizontal, by which the mine can be entered, drained of water, and ventilated.-Construction:...

.

Train 904 bombing

On 23 December 1984 17 people were killed and 250 wounded by a bomb on the Naples

Naples

Naples is a city in Southern Italy, situated on the country's west coast by the Gulf of Naples. Lying between two notable volcanic regions, Mount Vesuvius and the Phlegraean Fields, it is the capital of the region of Campania and of the province of Naples...

-Milan

Milan

Milan is the second-largest city in Italy and the capital city of the region of Lombardy and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while its urban area, roughly coinciding with its administrative province and the bordering Province of Monza and Brianza ,...

 Express, Train 904, which exploded in the tunnel. The attack is attributed to the Mafia

Mafia

The Mafia is a criminal syndicate that emerged in the mid-nineteenth century in Sicily, Italy. It is a loose association of criminal groups that share a common organizational structure and code of conduct, and whose common enterprise is protection racketeering...

.

The Italicus Express bombing in 1974 was on the same line, though not in the tunnel.

Literary references

The Apennine Tunnel is referred to and used as a plot device in Cabal by Michael Dibdin

Michael Dibdin

Michael Dibdin , was a British crime writer.-Life:Dibdin was born in Wolverhampton, the son of a physicist, and was brought up from the age of seven in Lisburn, Northern Ireland where he attended Friends' School...

.