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World's Longest, Deepest Rail Tunnel Opens In Switzerland (latimes.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Los Angeles Times: More than 2,200 years after the commander from the ancient North African civilization of Carthage led his army of elephants and troops over Europe's highest mountain chain, the Swiss have completed another gargantuan task: burrowing the world's longest railway tunnel under the Swiss Alps to improve European trade and travel. European dignitaries on Wednesday inaugurated the 35.4-mile Gotthard Railway Tunnel, a major engineering achievement deep under the Alps' snow-capped peaks. It took 17 years to build at a cost of 12.2 billion Swiss francs ($12 billion) -- but workers kept to a key Swiss tradition and brought the massive project in on time and on budget. It also bores deeper than any other tunnel, running about 1.4 miles underground at its maximum depth. The thoroughfare aims to cut travel times, ease roadway traffic and reduce the air pollution spewed from trucks traveling between Europe's north and south. Set to open for commercial service in December, the two-way tunnel can handle up to 260 freight trains and 65 passenger trains per day.
The Gotthard Railway Tunnel was built between 1871 and 1882, and was the world's longest rail tunnel at the time.
This is the Gotthard Base Tunnel (and there is a third tunnel, the Gotthard Road Tunnel).
Second class citizen of the New Gilded Age
Simply put, freight capacity.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
IKEA isn't Swiss.
To match the freight and passenger capacity of high-speed trains, you'd need A LOT of flights. None of which will land in a city centre.
I assume it's also a more direct route, or they wouldn't have gone through a mountain to build it.
Trains are also much more efficient than trucks.
Among the performances was a topless dancer wearing giant wings who soared over orange-suited dancers as they crawled on the ground below.
At another point, humans dressed like bales of hay were seen swaying on a flatbed before running around on the floor.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
The fee is actually 40 CHF (~36 euros) for 1-year
I'm no expert on the AlpTransits project (which includes the Gotthard Base Tunnel and a number of other new tunnels), but the whole project seems to have been on budget in part because they cut stuff. For example, the Loetschberg Base Tunnel, which is the second longest tunnel in this project, is opened but not complete. They just stopped part way through and declared it good enough (one bore is up and running -- I've been through it -- but the other isn't finished). Or, as wikipedia puts it:
Due to the soaring costs of the AlpTransit initiative, funds were diverted to the Gotthard Base Tunnel; and the LBT [Loetschberg Base Tunnel] is only half finished.
Even worse, work on the Zimmerberg Base Tunnel is suspended -- possibly without plans to complete it.
The whole "on budget and in time" thing doesn't sound so miraculous in context: the Gotthard Base Tunnel is part of a larger project that is neither on time nor on budget. However, the Swiss government sure did a good job spinning it that way.
Putting cars in there makes the whole project way more challenging. Trains you can supply with electricity to move and their own internal illumination is sufficient. If you put a large number of cars or trucks through there you have to have significantly stronger ventilation systems and you need to illuminate the tunnel to a much greater degree.
On top of that you need to factor in a much higher risk of crashes and hence fire risk, which means more escape tunnels, fire bunkers, and other systems that would otherwise not be required.
Add on to that that these tunnels are only 9m in diameter which is not wide enough for anything other than a single lane road. As a comparison the Clem7 tunnel in Brisbane is 12.5m in diameter to accommodate 2 lanes.
ehm... I do live in Switzerland, and 99% of all trains (either passenger or freight) run on electrical power
Nitpick: in Europe, a typical freight train carries more like 4000 tons, not 10k. 10k trains are the multi-mile thingies you guys run across the Great Plains in the US. Here, we are a bit more limited w/r to train length, and some other factors. Your point is of course still valid, though.