AlpTransit Gotthard - How to build the world’s longest tunnel?
AlpTransit Gotthard - How to build the world’s longest tunnel?
Ambros Zgraggen, deputy director of communications at AlpTransit Gotthard, explained the project AlpTransit enthusistically to about 60 people at SHARE.
AlpTransit is a Swiss federal project aimed to build faster north-south rail links across the Swiss Alps by constructing base tunnels several hundred meters below the level of the current tunnels. Two superlative tunnels crossing the Alps are momentarily under construction, the Lötschberg and the Gotthard. With a planned length of 57 km, the Gotthard Base Tunnel will be the longest railway tunnel in the world upon completion (expected in 2015), as the original Gotthard tunnel of 15.0 km was at the time of its completion in 1881.
For safety reasons, all the tunnels consist of two single-track bores side by side that are connected about every 300 meters with cross cuts, enabling the other tunnel to be used for escape. The idea of tunnels is to have a flat railway track between north and south, which enables to have much heavier train compositions to cross the Alps. And the trains can run much faster, up to 160 miles per hour. The highest peak of the Gotthard tunnel is at an elevation of only 500 meters.
The construction of tunnels is dangerous. On a worldwide average, every kilometer of built tunnel a miner looses his life. The AlpTransit people therefore try very hard to protect the health and lives of all workers in this thorny environment. Sadly, so far seven people lost their live in AlpTransit mostly due to human failure (e.g. run over by a truck).
The total cost of the AlpTransit projects is currently estimated to reach 16 billion Swiss francs ($US 13 billion). The Lötschberg base tunnel will be opened in 2007 and will be the first part of AlpTransit to be completed.
Mr. Zgraggen continued his travel in the United States to Washington DC, where he had a talk at the National Building Museum, which has been set up by Cultural Affairs of the Swiss Embassy in Washington DC.
