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Some 2,500 people have worked on the tunnel's construction
Swiss engineers are set to smash through the last pieces of rock to complete the digging of the world's longest transport tunnel.
The two ends of the 57km (35 mile) Gotthard rail tunnel will meet after 14 years of construction work.
The event is to be broadcast live on Swiss TV, and watched by transport ministers across Europe.
The tunnel is expected to open to trains in 2017, when it will slash journey times between Zurich and Milan.
The 9.8bn Swiss franc (£6.4bn; $10.3bn) project will take up to 300 trains each day underneath the Alps at speeds of 250km/h (155mph).
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The BBC's Imogen Foulkes in Switzerland says the impetus behind the project came from concerns that the amount of freight traffic rumbling over the Alps was damaging the environment.
The length of the Gotthard tunnel will exceed the 53.8km Seikan rail tunnel linking the Japanese islands of Honshu and Hokkaido, and the 50km Channel tunnel linking England and France.
"The Gotthard will forever be a spectacular and grandiose monument with which all tunnels will be compared," said Swiss Transport Minister Moritz Leuenberger.
Some 2,500 people have worked on the tunnel, and eight people have lost their lives during the construction.
Many of the workers are being invited to a celebration at the mountain village of Sedrun, where the two ends of the tunnel will meet, 2,000m below ground.
Switzerland is one of Europe's major junctions for freight, and the tunnel is part of a larger project aiming to move cargo off the roads and on to rail.
The area already has the 34km Loetschberg rail tunnel, which opened in 2007.
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Some 2,500 people have worked on the tunnel's construction Swiss engineers are set to smash through the last pieces of rock to complete the digging of the world's longest transport tunnel.
The two ends of the 57km (35 mile) Gotthard rail tunnel will meet after 14 years of construction work.
The event is to be broadcast live on Swiss TV, and watched by transport ministers across Europe.
The tunnel is expected to open to trains in 2017, when it will slash journey times between Zurich and Milan.
The 9.8bn Swiss franc (£6.4bn; $10.3bn) project will take up to 300 trains each day underneath the Alps at speeds of 250km/h (155mph).
Related stories
The BBC's Imogen Foulkes in Switzerland says the impetus behind the project came from concerns that the amount of freight traffic rumbling over the Alps was damaging the environment.
The length of the Gotthard tunnel will exceed the 53.8km Seikan rail tunnel linking the Japanese islands of Honshu and Hokkaido, and the 50km Channel tunnel linking England and France.
"The Gotthard will forever be a spectacular and grandiose monument with which all tunnels will be compared," said Swiss Transport Minister Moritz Leuenberger.
Some 2,500 people have worked on the tunnel, and eight people have lost their lives during the construction.
Many of the workers are being invited to a celebration at the mountain village of Sedrun, where the two ends of the tunnel will meet, 2,000m below ground.
Switzerland is one of Europe's major junctions for freight, and the tunnel is part of a larger project aiming to move cargo off the roads and on to rail.
The area already has the 34km Loetschberg rail tunnel, which opened in 2007.
Send your pictures and videos to yourpics@bbc.co.uk or text them to 61124 (UK) or 0044 7725 100 100 (International). If you have a large file you can upload here.
Read the terms and conditions
At no time should you endanger yourself or others, take any unnecessary risks or infringe any laws. In most cases a selection of your comments will be published, displaying your name as you provide it and location unless you state otherwise. But your contact details will never be published.
This article is from the BBC News website. ? British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.