Article: World's longest tunnel gets ready for rapid rail

[ozbob]

From the Brisbanetimes click here!

World's longest tunnel gets ready for rapid rail

World's longest tunnel gets ready for rapid rail
October 14, 2010 - 4:57PM

A giant drilling machine will complete the world's longest tunnel beneath the Swiss Alps on Friday, paving the way for continuous high-speed rail travel between northern and southeastern Europe.

The ceremonial breakthrough in the 57-kilometre long Gotthard base tunnel through the foot of the Alps is due to take place 30 kilometres from one end and 2000 metres below a mountain.

Eight of some 2500 tunnel workers have died since construction of the new railway link began in central Switzerland 15 years ago, blasting and boring through 13 million cubic metres of rock in hot and humid conditions.
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By the time it opens for service in 2017, it will exceed the 53.8-kilometre Seikan rail tunnel linking the Japanese islands of Honshu and Hokkaido and the world's longest road tunnel, the 24.5-kilometre Laerdal in Norway.

Although the near 10 billion Swiss franc ($A10.53 billion) project is Swiss, it has fast taken on a continental dimension with the aim of unclogging one of the main north-south commercial routes between Germany and Italy.

European Union Transport Commissioner Siim Kallas on Tuesday called the new Gotthard tunnel "a remarkable project".

Transport ministers from the 27-nation bloc are due to watch the breakthrough ceremony live on television during a regular meeting in Luxembourg, officials said. Switzerland is a not a member of the EU.

The tunnel would cut one hour from the transalpine rail journey, and drive booming road freight off congested Swiss mountain roads onto more environmentally sound rail.

"The Gotthard base tunnel is a milestone on the way to taking freight traffic off the road and onto rail," said Peter Fueglistaler, director of the Federal Transport Office.

Switzerland nonethless struggled to convince sceptical European neighbours after Swiss voters supported an ecologist motion to ban heavy trucks from the Alps -- including the expanding flow of transiting EU goods traffic -- in a shock referendum result in 1994.

In recent years, Austria, France and Italy have set in motion two similar rail tunnel projects through the eastern and western Alps.

"The European Union has made great strides in our direction," said Swiss Transport Minister Moritz Leuenberger.

Last month, Leuenberger handed over a ticket for a post-2017 Gotthard crossing to each of his EU colleagues.

Around 300 trains should be able to speed through the twin tubes every day, at up to 250 kilometres per hour for passenger trains, according to planners.

The current ageing and narrow 15-kilometre tunnel higher up the flanks of the St. Gotthard can cope with just a fraction of that capacity at less than half the speed.

It was nonetheless a global engineering feat when it was completed 128 years ago, having claimed the lives of some 200 tunnel workers.

By the time the 9.5-metre wide tunnel drilling machine breaks through the remaining metre of rock on Friday, the overall cost of the new base tunnel and other revamped rail lines through the Swiss Alps will reach nearly 19 billion francs.

For locals in the mountains, meanwhile, it almost brings the 63 year-old dream of a Swiss engineer to life.

In 1947 Carl Eduard Gruner envisaged not only a tunnel through the foot of the mountains at the same location, but a high speed train network that would whisk tourists between continents and allow them to stop at a gateway to the Alps.

Tentative plans for the "Porta Alpina" station halfway along the new Gotthard tunnel were shelved because of the cost, 50 million francs.

But a huge cavern and evacuation siding has been prepared beneath the village of Sedrun, at the foot of an 800-metre lift shaft built by southern African mining specialists and close to some ambitious ski resorts.

AFP

[#Metro]

So much for 'the gradient is too steep'!!!

[Golliwog]

Where does gradient come in anywhere in the story?

[colinw]

So will the original Gotthard tunnel remain open as well?

[#Metro]

Where does gradient come in anywhere in the story?

Do you see the irony- that's why I said what I said...  LOL

[johnnigh]

Ahh, memories!
My wife & I took a weekend to cross the Alps from Chur to Lugarno, the Ratische Bahn from Chur to Disentis, 6%+ gradients without rack assistance, then to Andermatt on the Gotthard-Matterhorn Bahn, >7% but rack assisted, thence to Gosschen.These were 1m gauge. Changed to SBB through the old tunnel, still quite a way. Observed the various worksites and signage about the new tunnel. Then changed to S-bahn at Bellinzona for the run in to Lugarno. The rail map shows extraordinarily convoluted mass of lines south of the Alps around Bellinzona, obviously the new tunnel will sort a few things out.
The following day back over the Alps on the Bernina Express, not a sewing machine, but an RhB line from Tirano in Italy back to Chur, again, no rack assistance, 2500m pass, 7% max gradient and spiral bridges and tunnels. This line is the highest over the Alps and RhB is very proud that they don't use rack assistance.
As a tourist crossing the Alps south to north by rail, the Bernina Express is hard to beat, Chur connects via SBB directly to Bern, Zurich and St Gallen.

[ozbob]

Engineers celebrate a breakthrough as a 35-mile long rail tunnel - the world's longest - takes shape deep below the Swiss Alps.

[Stillwater]

Just musing ... perhaps the movie-makers should rescript and reshoot Von Ryan's Express.