Tianshan Shengli vs Yamate: length, opening date and class compared

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Side by side

Tianshan Shengli is recorded on data/tun10.html and Yamate on data/tun10.html, compiled to the same convention, which is what makes the two figures comparable at all.

How this archive measures: lengths, bores, dates and ordering

How this table is compiled

Neither holds the record: Laerdal at 24.51 km is the longest road tunnel recorded here, 2.38 km ahead of Tianshan Shengli. Both rows are reachable from the road tunnel table they were taken from, where the note column carries the tube count, the gradient and any reconstruction Tianshan Shengli or Yamate has had.

That gap is about 18 per cent of the longer bore, which is the figure worth holding on to rather than the raw metres. This archive separates 4 classes of structure and both entries here are indexed under road tunnel, which decides the table each is ranked in and the convention its length was measured by.

At over twenty kilometres Tianshan Shengli sits in the small group of bores long enough to need intermediate ventilation and a full escape regime. Driven end to end the two would run 40.33 km, which is the figure to hold against the 24.51 km of the longest single road tunnel in the record.

Tianshan Shengli and Yamate are compared here on the figures this archive records for each, taken from the same sources and the same measurement convention. 16 other structures in this record opened within two years of Tianshan Shengli, which is the cohort it was designed alongside and the fairer comparison for how it was built.

Across every class this archive records, Tianshan Shengli stands 28th by length and Yamate 42nd, so the pair sits inside the top 42 of 244 structures. Counting every class, 13 recorded structures fall between these two by length; the comparison is a window on that part of the record rather than a gap in it.

Reading the figures

Tianshan Shengli is the longer of the two at 22.13 km, ahead of Yamate at 18.2 km, a difference of 3.93 km. The 2010s account for 69 entries in this archive, and Yamate is one of them, which is the context a single opening date does not carry on its own.

Yamate opened in 2015 and Tianshan Shengli 10 years later in 2025, and that gap usually matters more than the length difference. Both pass ten kilometres, which 161 of the 244 structures recorded here manage, so this is a comparison inside a small group rather than across the field. Portals and approaches are counted consistently.

Both are recorded in this archive as road tunnels, so the measurement convention is identical and the comparison is direct. 27 recorded structures are longer than Tianshan Shengli, the nearest of them Qingyunshan at 22.18 km. Cost figures are excluded throughout this archive, because currency, inflation and differing project scope make them close to meaningless in comparison.

Among the road tunnels this archive records, Tianshan Shengli stands 2nd by length and Yamate 3rd, adjacent in the ranking. A pilot bore driven ahead of the main tunnel is usually kept afterwards as the escape route. A hard shoulder inside a tunnel is expensive width, which is why a breakdown there is treated as an emergency.

The interesting figure on most crossings is the gradient or the cover, and neither appears in a ranking by length. Wartime damage closed several crossings for years and a few were never reopened to their original use. Lighting is brightest at a portal in daylight, because the adapting eye is the hazard rather than the dark.