WORLD RECORD. MAIN BREAKTHROUGH ON THE EPOCH-MAKING GOTTHARD PROJECT.
The breakthrough at the Gotthard Base Tunnel on March 23, 2011 in the Western tunnel and on October 15, 2010 in the Eastern tunnel marks the most significant milestone on the way to completing the longest railway tunnel in the world. With the 2 times 57 kilometer long epoch-making project, Switzerland is connecting northern and southern Europe by rail through the Alps. Herrenknecht Gripper tunnel boring machines have excavated and secured more than 85km of the main tubes.
Giants in hard rock.
In 2016, the first high-speed trains will travel along, or rather through, the New Alpine Transversal (NEAT) at speeds of 200 to 250 kilometers per hour. This will cut the journey time from Zurich to Milan by one hour to 2 hours and 40 minutes. Swiss Railways are expecting, in particular, to cut freight transport times – yet another important improvement in traffic logistics between Germany and Italy. A new era in trans-Alpine rail travel is dawning. Setting off from Bahnhofstrasse in Zurich for a morning’s leisurely shopping in the stylish Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II in Milan and returning the same afternoon with your shopping bags full of the best Italian designer wear. Only a dream? In 2016, this vision could be reality.
This quick jaunt between the two commercial centers will be made possible by a unique, epoch-making project – the construction of the new Gotthard Base Tunnel along with the Ceneri and Zimmerberg Base Tunnels. With a length of 57 kilometers and a maximum altitude of 550 meters above sea level, i.e. truly at the foot of the St.Gotthard mountain, two single-lane tunnel tubes will cross the Alpine range from valley floor to valley floor, as it were, on an almost level course. This will put an end to travel that was so slow, passengers could almost pick the flowers along the line, and the need for double locomotives to drive freight trains up steep gradients will be a thing of the past.
The longest wonder of the world.
“This will be a high-speed rail corridor for Europe straight through the Alps, to transport goods in an environmentally friendly way from Rotterdam to Genoa,” says Moritz Leuenberger, Swiss Federal Councillor, in describing the ‘longest wonder of the world’. “We are working together with our partners on developing Europe’s infrastructure, even though we are not members of the EU,” he continues. This truly great feat is part of Switzerland’s plan to transfer as much freight transport from road to rail as possible, as a way of protecting the environment.
The Alpine country is nearing this goal in leaps and bounds. The ‘shell’ of the world’s longest railway tunnel is complete – the final and crucial breakthrough at the halfway point, the border between the Faido and Sedrun construction lots, took place on March 23, 2011 and on October 15, 2010. This marked the completion of one of the most important stages in this spectacular undertaking, which has seen such impressive feats throughout its history. It is the result of almost half a century of intensive planning and has evolved continuously along with technology and geological science. It has also required courageous and farsighted political decisions to be made. The idea of a Gotthard Base Tunnel was first voiced in 1947 – but construction work on the tunnel did not begin until 2001.
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