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The Kaunas railway tunnel is historically one of the most impressive engineering solutions not only in Lithuania, but also in all of Europe. Having survived two wars and one bombing, it is now one of the oldest working tunnels in Europe, the only one in the Baltic States and the only one in the world to have two parallel tracks on one embankment: the broad 1520 millimeter and the 1435 millimeter European gauge. Construction of the Kaunas railway tunnel began in the spring of 1859, like the entire St. Petersburg-Warsaw section in the then Russian Empire. Crossing the Nemunas near Kaunas has become one of the biggest challenges of this line. In those days, the 1,280-meter-long, 8.44-meter-wide, 6.95-meter-high tunnel was an engineering masterpiece. Two tracks were built on it, so trains could pass by, due to the natural slope, natural ventilation took place, the smoke from the train disappeared by itself within 10-15 minutes. Engineers designed the tunnel in such a way that it did not need artificial groundwater removal mechanisms.