Two of the Utopianist’s favorite things collide in Belgium: High-speed rail and solar power. Yes, over two miles of solar panels have been installed atop a tunnel housing a stretch of Euro rail. The 16,000 solar panels channel energy to the rail system below, help lightening the carbon footprint of a transportation mode that’s already far, far lighter than existing alternatives. The result?

Europe’s first “Solar Tunnel.” Check it out:

The Guardian reports (via Grist): “For train operators, it is the perfect way to cut their carbon footprints because you can use spaces that have no other economic value and the projects can be delivered within a year because they don’t attract the protests that wind power does,” said Bart Van Renterghem, UK head of Belgian renewable energy company Enfinity, which installed the panels.”

This is the sort of development planning we need to see much, much more of in our resource-starved world — solar panels should litter idle rooftops and unused surfaces everywhere, and high speed rail should snake through the countryside as our predominant means of long distance transit. That this vision has successfully melded the two makes it ahead of its time.

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Image: Screengrab via YouTube