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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.
Giggity.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Lies. All lies. There's no such thing as tunnels. Or Switzerland, for that matter.
Can we use this to transport Jews to concentration camps and niggers to receive concrete boots for a journey into the Mediterranean?
why spend all that money for a tunnel when you can simply fly over the mountains?
I wonder, could we put a giant lens into orbit that acts like a magnifying glass? Then could we use that lens to literally burn the word "FUCK" into the European countryside with letters big enough to be seen from Mars? That would be amazing!
A few years ago when the TBM knocked through the last bit of rock in this tunnel, this cool video of the event might even have been posted on slashdot (can't remember where I ran across it): https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Why was this modded down? It's a valid suggestion for how this tunnel could be used. Can anyone explain the downmod to me?
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
It's in metric country, doofuses.
... not only because they did it "on budget and in time", which can only mean they didn't go for the cheapest bidder, but also because it's trains going through the tunnel, only!
Had this been done in proper US-style, that tunnel would have no place for trains, but one lane reserved to military vehicles and the cars of VIP ticket holders, then another lane for ordinary cars, on which a permanent traffic jam would take you 2 hours mininum to pass the tunnel, if only because of the mandatory TSA strip searching before entering.
Just like your Mom!!!
Juggernarut either
At first I wasn't clear on how the tunnel would reduce pollution. Won't the bad gases just come out of the tunnel? But of course, the idea is the tunnel will shift cargo transport from trucks to trains. Presumably trains produce less pollution. Or at least less trash littering the "pristine Swiss landscape"
This posting is provided 'AS IS' without warranty of any kind, implied or otherwise.
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?
Wikipedia tells me that temperature increases roughly by 25 degrees C per km of depth so, that would be about 58 degrees C... however apparently the actual temperature at that depth is 46 degrees. So... hellishly hot, but not as hot as expected. What accounts for the difference, is the crust thicker there because of the weight of the alps?
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
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.
So, the Swiss managed to do this for $12b ... and how much did the Big Dig cost?
+1 for digging world's most awesome tunnel, ever.
-1 for coming up with this.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
... I'm so surprised. Why haven't AFRICANS done this? Any answers?
Given the way Europe is going, maybe it should be called the Taggart Tunnel.
Now everyone wants to put a train in that tunnel.
Chewbacon
The Bible is like Wikipedia: written by a bunch of people and verifiable by questionable sources.
Even if these were diesel trains (they're actually electric), there would be a significant reduction in pollution because trains are incredibly efficient and trucks are not. All things being equal, a gallon of diesel fuel will move one ton of cargo over 200 miles on a railroad (or over 400 miles, depending on your reference). Trucks are nowhere close to that efficient.
It's hard to overstate how efficient trains are at moving cargo; no other land method comes close. (You can only do better on boats/barges.)
It's because of the cheese. The most popular (widely sold) "Swiss" cheese in the US is Jarlsberg, which comes from Sweden*.
*Well, actually Norway. But what's the difference?
Actually that's something most people don't think about. This is a looooooong tunnel, and trains aren't exactly clean (unless we're talking electric), so how do you keep stuff from settling in the tunnel and creating noxious pockets? Around here one just has to look at fences or shrubs near a track and one side is pretty much black from accumulated soot over time.
Motion of the trains themselves probably helps somewhat but it's still going to get kinda dirty in there unless there's a good maintenance plan.
Yeah, and after they use it for awhile, trapped heat is probably going to add to that. Even electric generates heat, and a lot of that is going to build up.
Why there is EU flag symbol waving next to an article about Swiss achievement?
Cayenne8 has been delayed.
He asked me to say that they should have built a road instead, because trains are for faggots and communists.
the bombs start flying. Probably safer than NORAD.
Isn't the most important thing here the fact that the Swiss are bad ass? If Trump wins. He should hire the Swiss to complete the wall. If someone else wins they should hire the Swiss to build for them. Nothing else to see here. It's called capitalism. It goes to the top of the charts no matter what, because it only deals with the best. I'm kinda mad at myself because I'm learning these things late in life. You have to be the absolute best. Strive for it. Be it and you will live forever in history. Come in second and you will make billions of dollars. 1000th place equals $20,000 a year to be mediocre. Just be like the Swiss, rigid perfection. No more slop.
Fifty years ago, Drs. Gordon T. Danby and James R. Powell of Brookhaven National Labs on Long Island, New York, invented first-generation Superconducting Magnetic Levitation (SC MagLev) Rail, using dipole magnets. This was used for the current JR Central MagLev system in Japan. Since then, they have developed their far-superior second-generation system, using quadrupole magnets. In this system, the vehicles are not so much levitated above the rail, but suspended by the sides of the rail, so that any effort to move the vehicle up, down, or to the left or right, elicits strong restoring forces, meaning it can resist all but the strongest winds. Also, since the gap between the rail and the vehicle is about 4" (10 cm), if the rail gets iced up,it is only necessary to de-ice it to a depth of about 2½" (6 cm). Thus, second-generation MagLev is almost impervious to weather. Also, this MagLev system can handle the steep grades needed when crossing a mountain. With external propulsion power, as much energy as is needed can be used to raise each vehicle over the mountain, and most all that energy would be recovered as it descends the mountain on the other side. Thus, you could have ordinary MagLev vehicles, some as small as individual passenger cars, that could cross over the mountains on open-air MagLev monorails. For details, see www.LeviCar.com/, with links to Danby and Powell's work in Group A (Antecedents and Allies). Tunnels are expensive and of limited capacity. MagLev rails are a lot cheaper, and just as good.