SWITZERLAND | Gotthard Base Tunnel

[Deadeye]

Fresh news from this amazing project:


Communiqué of 04.11.2005

52.9 percent of the Gotthard Base Tunnel excavated

On all construction sites of AlpTransit Gotthard Ltd. the work is continuing at full speed. Of the total of 153.5 km of tunnels, shafts and passages, on November 1, 2005, 81.237 km, or 52.9 percent, had already been excavated.





The Alpine crossing


Geology


Tunnel system


Amsteg West single-track tunnel TBM Gabi II


Amsteg West single-track tunnel TBM Gabi II


Faido - Breakthrough in the connecting gallery


East single-track tunnel backward drive


Control cab of tunnel boring machine


Backup train of tunnel boring machine


Monorail of tunnel boring machine


West single-track tunnel


Maintenance to cutting head of tunnel boring machine


Service train


Overview of Sedrun construction site


Shaft head


Hoisting gear


Shaft bottom


Steel inserts


East single-track tunnel south

[centralized pandemonium]

Been thru that once, was bloody creepy.

[Brett]

cool!

[Momo1435]

My tip, go to

English: http://www.alptransit.ch/pages/e/service/prospekte.php
Deutsch: http://www.alptransit.ch/pages/d/service/prospekte.php
Francais: http://www.alptransit.ch/pages/f/service/prospekte.php
Italiano: http://www.alptransit.ch/pages/f/service/prospekte.php

Here you can get "free" brochures from the project, they send them to me in Holland.

Some more news:
*It looks like the Porta Alpina station, on the place of the "Multifunktionsstelle Sedrun" will be build. It will serve the Surselva tourist area in Graubunden. In the vertical tunnel build for the construction there will be a lift of almost 800 meters high. link (in German): http://www.visiun-porta-alpina.ch/

*South of the Gotthard tunnel between Bellinzona and Lugano the Ceneri base tunnel will be build, this one will be only 15,4 kilometer but is an important part of the project.

@ HariR

It's not finished yet. Have you been through the old tunnel or did you visit a open day?

[earthJoker]

Maybe he visited a open day

The building sites have become a major tourist attraction.

[Deadeye]

Webcams on the Sedrun construction site

[De Snor]

Amazing what they do in Switzerland !
The Porta Alpina station is out of this world

[Greg]

That's not all - a second tunnel is almost finish. The Lötschberg base tunnel runs from Frutigen in the Kandertal/Bernese Overland to Raron in the Valais. It is 34.6 km long and is designed as a two-tube, single-track rail tunnel, with each tube carrying trains running in opposite directions; it will come into operation in 2007. It is planned to adapt the tunnel to increasing needs in several stages.
The new Lötschberg-Basistunnel (base tunnel) between Frutigen and Raron lowers the This tunnel is part of the NEAT projects, together with the Gotthard base tunnel, and will be integrated into a European network of high speed trains, like TGV and ICE. The tunnel will allow speed around 250 km/h. It is a two-tube, single-track rail tunnel. This means that each tube is carrying trains running in one direction. The advantage is clear: trains can be scheduled continuously in both directions, the will be no waiting time. The distance between two trains depends on the security concept, and may be minimized in the future by new technologies.

[scorpion]

amazing work~~

can't wait to use this tunnel!!

[Bitxofo]

Is it for high speed trains or normal trains?

[Momo1435]

It's both for normal and for high speed trains, the maximum speed is 250 km/h. Normal passenger trains will have a speed of 200 km/h. But it will also be heavily used by freight trains, these will travel 100-160 km/h through the tunnel.
The High Speed trains that gonna use the tunnel are the new pendolino's from Alstom for the Cisalpino services. There will be no regional services to the tunnel.

The old route will stil be operated by regional and interregional and light and/or slow freighttrains.

@ greg
The, adapt to increasing needs means that the Lötschberg-Basistunnel, will be partly a single track line. In first intance there will probally be some waiting time, probally for freight trains.

[Deadeye]

Communiqué of 01.12.2005

54.1 percent of the Gotthard Base Tunnel excavated

On all construction sites of AlpTransit Gotthard Ltd. the work is continuing at full speed. Of the total of 153.5 km of tunnels, shafts and passages, on Dezember 1st, 2005, 83.163 km, or 54.1 percent, had already been excavated.

[Küsel]

Here is a map of the Lötschberg Basistunnel - it is a financial catastrophy (although a great engineering project) but had to be built for federation reasons. Bern and the Romandie also wanted to have a direct fast connection to the south. So they had to build in the same time a parallel alpine transit line to the Gotthard.




And as 100 years ago, it's not the Swiss that build these modern wonders of the world, but cheap labarours from the south (in the 19th century it was manly Italians that had to work (and often die) like slaves - one of the reason for the high Italian pop in northern Switzerland)... the circumstances nowadays are a bit better, but... not that much

"North and South Switzerland join"

[empersouf]

Ive seen this on Discovery, if this tunnel is completed, the connecion of High speed trains will be much better. Cool tunnel.

[Deadeye]

57.9 percent of the Gotthard Base Tunnel excavated

On March 1, 2006, of the total of 153.5 km of tunnels, galleries and passages of the Gotthard Base Tunnel, 88.89 km or 57.9% had been excavated. This means that a greater length has now been excavated on the Gotthard than on the Lötschberg. There, the entire length of tunnels and galleries excluding cross passages is 88.064 km.
The total amount driven in February 2006 was 2,235 metres.

[Bertez]

Looks awesome

[Tubeman]

I was curious, and I suppose this applies to all long tunnels, what's its shelf life considering the Alps are still actively being thrust upwards due to tectonic activity?

Will it start to crack in a few years? At what point will it start to become too misaligned?

Not soon, I'm sure... But you get my point?

[Tuxa4evskiy]

Very impressive!

[De Snor]

Druckfrisch: Das Buch über den Lötschberg-Basistunnel!

Das Buch «Von der Idee zum Durchschlag» beschreibt ausführlich den Bau des Jahrhundert-Projektes Lötschberg-Basistunnel. Von den ersten Projektideen und Skizzen bis hin zum letzten Durchschlag im April 2005



Auf rund 300 Seiten sehen Sie, was alles nötig ist, damit ein solch
gigantisches Projekt überhaupt realisiert werden kann. In dem gut
gegliederten Werk erfahren Sie viel Wissenswertes über die einzelnen Themenbereiche wie z.B. Geologie, Vermessung, Materialbewirtschaftung und die verschiedenen Baustellen. Das Buch ist reich illustriert mit
ausdrucksstarken Farbbildern des Fotografen Thomas Andenmatten. Eingeschoben sind zwei Teile mit Schwarzweiss-Aufnahmen von Bernard Dubuis, welche die eindrückliche Arbeit der Tunnelbauer zeigt.
Herausgeber des Werkes ist die BLS AlpTransit AG. Die Textbeiträge wurden von am Bau beteiligten Ingenieuren geschrieben. Das Buch soll sowohl Fachleute wie auch die breite Öffentlichkeit ansprechen. Es ist in unseren Info-Centern erhältlich oder kann unter www.staempfli.com bestellt werden. Bis Ende 2005 ist das Buch zum Preis von Fr. 44.– erhältlich, ab Neujahr dann zum regulären Preis von Fr. 54.–.

Schlicht, edel, audrucksvoll bebildert und mit interessanten Informationen: So präsentiert sich das Werk dem Publikum.

Worth every CHF !!

[Vertigo]

VERY impressive project. This will change travel through the Alps for good.

@momochan: are you sure the old route will remain open? I heard it would perhaps be closed. That would be too bad, because it's a beautiful railway line and could function both for regional passenger trains as well as for tourists trains.