Brenner Base Tunnel Brenner Base Tunnel The Brenner Base Tunnel (; ) is a planned railway tunnel through the base of the Eastern Alps beneath the Brenner Pass. It will run from near Innsbruck, in Austria, to Fortezza, in Italy, replacing part of the current Brenner railway. The line is part of Line 1, the Berlin to Palermo route, of Trans-European Transport Networks (TEN-T). The Brenner Pass, in the Alps at the border between Austria and Italy, is one of the most important traffic connections between northern and southern Europe, and the motorway going over it is infamous for its frequent traffic jams.
Brenner Pass Counts of Tyrol within the Holy Roman Empire. Emperor Frederick Barbarossa made frequent uses of the Brenner Pass to cross the Alps during his imperial expeditions of Italy. The 12th-century Brenner Pass was a trackway for mule trains and carts. Modernisation of Brenner Pass started in 1777, when a carriage road was laid out at the behest of Empress Maria Theresa. Modernisation further took place under the Austrian Empire and the Brenner Railway, which was completed in stages from 1853 to 1867. It became the first trans-Alpine railway without a major tunnel and at high altitude (crossing Brenner Pass at