High speed through the Alps New Alpine rail link

HIGH SPEED THROUGH THE ALPS

Crossing the Alps has always posed a challenge. Constructing the new alpine rail link was no exception, as Robert Williams reports.

The Alps have remained a cultural and trading barrier across Europe for centuries. Switzerland, at the crossroads of Europe, has seen the barrier diminish and traffic continue to grow. A motorway construction programme and the opening of the Gotthard road tunnel in 1980 greatly encouraged the movement of freight by road. But growing environmental concern about increasing numbers of lorries was joined by the shock of the multiple fatalities in the Gotthard and Mont Blanc road tunnel accidents.

The Swiss are among the most enthusiastic rail users on the planet: the average Swiss person travels roughly two thousand kilometres by train each year. One reason why the construction of a new line through the Alps has special significance is that railways have always been a factor in national cohesion, bringing the different language regions closer together.

The hope is that the new alpine railway crossing will safeguard the environment and improve people’s quality of life, promoting the transfer of heavy goods traffic from road to rail and offering a real alternative to journeys by car or plane. The new rail link will lead to significantly shorter travel times, cutting an hour off the current three-and-a-half hour trip from Zurich to Milan, and will partially accommodate the projected increase in passenger and freight traffic through the Alps.

The Sfr20 billion tunnel construction is led by AlpTransit Gotthard GA, a wholly owned subsidiary of Swiss Federal Railways. At the heart of the project are two ‘base’ tunnels, the Lötschberg, (34.6 km/21.5 miles long) and the St Gotthard (57 km/35.5 miles long). Because they go through the base of the mountain and do not need to climb, the line can be much straighter than in the current tunnels.

Longest in the world

The Gotthard Base Tunnel connects Erstfeld, in the Swiss canton of Uri, with Bodio, in the Swiss canton of Ticino. It consists of two parallel tunnels deep under the mountains, 40 metres apart. At two emergency stops inside the tunnel, travellers can leave the train in the event of any problems. The tunnels are 57 kilometres long, constituting the longest railway tunnel in the world. The two tunnels are connected every 320 metres by a cross passage.

The two parallel tunnels allow for faster excavation and the shortening of the construction time by two to three years. The

construction time was also shortened by digging several access tunnels, permitting construction to be conducted on several sections simultaneously. At a maximum altitude of 550 metres, the base tunnel is about 600 metres lower than the present line’s summit and overall renders the Gotthard route no more challenging than many other parts of the Swiss Railways network. By avoiding the climbs, curves and spirals of the original Gotthard, the project will shorten the route by around 40 kilometres.

In the drilling of the tunnels, workers relied on eight gigantic, 3000-ton tunnel drilling machines simultaneously. An 800 metre-long shaft was drilled vertically into the mountain, for example, so that workers could begin working in the middle of the tunnel.

Workers removed fully 23 million tons of rock in the drilling of the tunnels. If the length of all the tunnels, including the cross tunnels, were added together, they would extend for 153 kilometres. Up to 2600 people worked on the project, battling with the dust, noise, humidity and temperatures of 30 degrees Celsius. Eight workers tragically lost their lives in the construction of the Gotthard Base Tunnel. During the construction of the old Gotthard Tunnel in the 19th century, the total was close to 300.

The progress of the boring and construction works allowed the second main phase of the project to begin at the end of June 2010: the installation of the railway infrastructure, including the railway tracks, power supply, telecommunications and safety systems.

The final breakthrough in the east tube of the Gotthard Base Tunnel happened in October 2010. It took 14 years and around 2500 workers to connect the two ends of the tunnel. This final breakthrough in the west tube was completed in March 2011.

The old railway line will be retained for local passenger services, for general capacity and as a diversionary route: a noted part of railway tourism, it also provides an interchange with the east–west metre-gauge network via Göschenen.

Planners have included in their calculations advances in freight vehicle technology to allow for speeds up to 160km/h (100mph) through the tunnel. Longer trains and more of them will double the present freight capacity on the Gotthard route, much of which will be intermodal services, with Alp Transit setting the amount at around 40 million tonnes annually.

The Gotthard tunnel is Switzerland’s largest-ever construction project and is scheduled to become operational at the end of 2016. n