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Switzerland's Mega Tunnel Sets Record

Posted by Soulskill on from the what-a-bore dept.

Anonymous Dupaeur writes "Switzerland, co-home of CERN and numerous other world organizations, has come closer to the completion of their recent megaproject: the Gotthard Base Tunnel, which will be the largest railway tunnel made by man. The project is due to be completed in 2017, and will host 200 to 250 trains a day with a significantly larger kinetic energy than the LHC's beams." After the completion of today's work, the tunnel is now 57 kilometers long, surpassing Japan's 53.9-kilometer Seikan Tunnel. There are a few longer tunnels in existence, such as the 137-kilometer Delaware Aqueduct, but they all move water rather than people.

13 of 163 comments (clear)

  1. Largest made by man by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    the Gotthard Base Tunnel, which will be the largest railway tunnel made by man.

    Is there a larger, naturally occurring train tunnel somewhere?

    1. Re:Largest made by man by The+Living+Fractal · · Score: 2, Insightful

      We also don't know if Man hasn't been abducted to live on a desert planet to mine for the universe's most precious mineral used in starship propulsion... where they could've made an even longer tunnel.

      --
      I do not respond to cowards. Especially anonymous ones.
  2. Holy irrelevant comparison, Batman! by DriedClexler · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Mentioning CERN because it's hosted in the same country as the tunnel? Comparing an entire train's kinetic energy to that of a fundmantal particle's kinetic energy? WTF?

    Why don't they compare the number of trains going through it per day to the number of possible subatomic particles while they're at it?

    --
    Information theory is life. The rest is just the KL divergence.
  3. Re:Tunnels vs. Highways? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    its mostly meant to be used by cargo transit.... where trains make much more sense.

  4. Good for them by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I don't mean to turn this into a slam against America, but I guess what I'm saying is, and so be it. It's a shame that countries around the world are spending billions on engineering such projects while America is spending trillions on war.

    1. Re:Good for them by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      As opposed to war? All of them.

    2. Re:Good for them by Surt · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Well, you could tunnel under the SF bay or the peninsula mountain range and relieve the ridiculous housing pressures in SV.
      You could lay FTTH pretty much across the country.
      There are a lot of great ideas out there that would help our country compete better, but instead we invest in farm subsidies because our politics are paralyzed.

      --
      "Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
    3. Re:Good for them by instagib · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Updating the nationwide electrical grid, including the ability to connect decentralized producers (solar in the south, wind in the north)?

    4. Re:Good for them by eln · · Score: 3, Insightful

      What needs to happen is someone in Washington needs to grow a spine and raise taxes to pay for what we need to pay for, and start trimming the fat going forward. The military is a great place to start

      Good luck with that. The military-industrial complex Eisenhower warned about is far bigger and more powerful than even he could have predicted, and it's basically unstoppable at this point. Defense contractors lobby Congress to fund giant defense projects of questionable value, Congress people get those giant defense projects built in their districts, and the jobs that get created turn into votes to get them re-elected and more money for the contractors to expand their lobbying efforts. It's a cycle that's good for everyone involved except the taxpayer (other than the ones in the Congress person's district, of course).

      Hell, the Secretary of Defense himself got raked over the coals for even daring to suggest the military didn't actually need all of the money they get every year, and wouldn't it be great if they could stop buying all this crap they have no use for. If the guy in charge of the military can't cut the military budget, then who the hell can? Congress sure isn't going to do it, nobody ever gets elected by being "soft on defense", especially in our post-9/11 fear-based system.

  5. Re:I'd love to see by cgenman · · Score: 2, Insightful

    It's not just on the drill, but Netflix has an Extreme Engineering instant streaming episode on the Swiss Mega Tunnel. They spend a lot of time on the drill, operations, repairs, etc.

    http://www.netflix.com/WiPlayer?movieid=70113457&trkid=438381

    --
    The ______ Agenda
  6. Re:Meanwhile in the U.S. by nutshell42 · · Score: 2, Insightful
    It's even worse than you think. $1 spent on road maintenance when the surface first starts to deteriorate will save $14 that you would have to spend to rebuild the roadbed if you let potholes reach the foundation. It's one of the most cost effective uses of money the government can do.

    But it doesn't get done. Why? Simple: Voters are stupid. Let me elaborate:

    • New projects allow lots of photo ops. Signing the contracts, groundbreaking, ribbon cutting, etc. "I was assiduous about routine maintenance" doesn't get you votes.
    • Even worse. Drivers don't like road works. If the road's a disaster they'll nevertheless approve because something had to be done, if the road was kinda ok, they'll be livid.

    There was a huge building spree in the 50s and 60s and a lot of infrastructure requires a major overhaul after half a century, i.e. lots and lots of money. But the Highway Trust Fund is broke because there hasn't been a raise of the gas tax for almost 20 years, and inflation means that that money's now worth less than half what it was then.

    Invest now to save later has never been the most American of attitudes and it's only gotten worse over the last decades (blame it on the Baby Boomers, they're on a spree to rape the country before they die =)

    --
    Don't think of it as a flame---it's more like an argument that does 3d6 fire damage
  7. Re:Meanwhile in the U.S. by bjohnson · · Score: 2, Insightful

    No, it's not very interesting because it simply isn't true. On the average government employees are better paid than the average american, but that's only because government jobs tend not to be minimum-wage McJobs.

    When controlled by educational achievement, the exact opposite is true.

    http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2010/09/public_employees_dont_make_mor.html

    The average government employee with a bachelors degree makes 25% LESS than the average private industry employee with a bachelors degree.

  8. Re:Meanwhile in the U.S. by Jedi+Alec · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Dream on buddy.

    *every* large organization has red tape. It increases exponentially as the organization grows linearly.

    Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to burn about 10k worth of man-hours to get approval for a 2k expense.

    --

    People replying to my sig annoy me. That's why I change it all the time.