Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

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.

11 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 rossdee · · Score: 5, Informative

      We don't know what aliens have built on some other planet in some other solar system...

  2. Gotthard by MrEricSir · · Score: 4, Funny

    Gotthard? Hadron?

    Who the hell is coming up with these names? Are they trying to sell Viagra?

    --
    There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
    1. Re:Gotthard by slick7 · · Score: 5, Funny

      Gotthard? Hadron?

      Who the hell is coming up with these names? Are they trying to sell Viagra?

      Zo, you zeem to have zis re-occurring dream about very long tunnelz? HMMM. And what do you zink iss moving in zis tunnelz?

      --
      The mind conceives, the body achieves, the spirit manifests.
  3. 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.
  4. Re:I'd love to see by MagicM · · Score: 4, Funny

    Bummer, I expected something exciting.

  5. 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.

  6. Re:I'd love to see by mangu · · Score: 4, Funny

    I'd love to see a story just about the drill itself

    Not me. I bet it'd be pretty boring.

  7. Meanwhile in the U.S. by Lucas123 · · Score: 5, Informative

    A third of the nation's highways are in poor or mediocre shape. Massively leaking water and sewage systems are creating health hazards and contaminating rivers and streams. More than 6,000 of our nation's 115,000 bridges that are part of the national highway system are structurally deficient, and we can't even get a new tunnel built to link traffic from New York and New Jersey to Manhattan.

  8. Re:Tunnels vs. Highways? by chocolatetrumpet · · Score: 4, Informative

    I'll be honest, the 40 minute savings doesn't really seem to be worth 10 billion dollars, until you realize that the USA could have built 70 of these things instead of the Iraq war...

    --
    Spoon not. Fork, or fork not. There is no spoon.