The Gotthard railway tunnel
Göschenen, Airolo, Lucerne, Zurich, Milan
Key figures: Alfred Escher, Louis Favre
HLS (German): Gotthard Railway
A European undertaking (1863–1872). The plan for a railway across the central Alps emerges in the mid-nineteenth century. After long rivalries between regions and routes, the Gotthard Union prevails, founded in 1863 by fifteen cantons and two railway companies and chaired by the Zurich entrepreneur Alfred Escher. Thanks to his financing policy, Switzerland, Germany and Italy sign an international convention to build and operate the line. In 1871 the Gotthard Railway Company is founded in Lucerne, and the Geneva engineer Louis Favre wins the contract for the tunnel, with heavy penalties for any delay.
The Italian workers. The diggers are mostly poor peasants from Piedmont and Lombardy: about 95% of the workforce is Italian. They live in overcrowded barracks in Göschenen and Airolo and work in shifts in the tunnel, amid dynamite fumes, rock dust, heat and water. Malnutrition, typhoid and an intestinal parasite, the hookworm, which causes the so-called “Gotthard anaemia”, strike thousands of men. To meet the deadlines the company uses the most modern techniques, compressed-air drills and dynamite, and makes working conditions even harsher.
The Göschenen strike (July 1875). On 27 July 1875 the miners of Göschenen down tools to demand better pay and less brutal working conditions. The next day a militia sent from Altdorf fires on the strikers: four workers die, five according to some sources, and others are wounded. The episode causes a scandal throughout Europe, but conditions on the site do not improve. For a century official history says little about it; in 1977 Villi Hermann’s film San Gottardo brings it back to memory.
The victims. According to the Historical Dictionary of Switzerland, the summit tunnel alone costs the lives of 177 workers; the official list counts 171, other studies reach 199, and many of the injured are simply sent home. Louis Favre himself dies in the tunnel, struck down by illness on 19 July 1879. On 29 February 1880 the teams digging from north and south meet under the mountain. The Ticino sculptor Vincenzo Vela dedicates to the dead the relief Le vittime del lavoro (The Victims of Labour), shown at the Swiss National Exhibition in Zurich in 1883; a bronze cast is placed in front of Airolo station in 1932.
The benefits of the tunnel. From 1882 trains run without interruption over Switzerland’s first Alpine transversal: the journey between Zurich and Milan is shortened by many hours, and Ticino is at last linked to the rest of the country all year round. Flows of goods and passengers concentrate on the Gotthard axis, with lasting effects on the economic geography of Switzerland and Europe; stations, hotels and industries spring up along the line. The technically advanced company is also at the centre of a financial crisis: costs explode and in 1878 Escher has to resign. In 1909 the Gotthard Railway passes to the Swiss Federal Railways; double track will be completed only in 1965. The 2016 base tunnel (see the stage) inherits this history.
The inaugural train at Göschenen station, May 1882
Photo: Florentin Joseph Charnaux, SBB Historic, Wikimedia Commons, CC0
The engineer Louis Favre, who directed the excavation and died in the tunnel in 1879
Wikimedia Commons, public domain
The site on the north side of the Gotthard near Göschenen at the time of the 1875 strike (period engraving)
Wikimedia Commons, public domain
The compressed-air drills used to dig the Gotthard tunnel
SBB Historic, via Wikimedia Commons, CC0
A construction train at the tunnel portal
Reproduction by Adrian Michael, via Wikimedia Commons, public domain
Vincenzo Vela’s monument to the victims of labour in front of Airolo station, bronze of 1932
Photo Arkelin, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0
The inaugural train at Bellinzona station, 23 May 1882
SBB Historic, via Wikimedia Commons, CC0
The unrest at Göschenen, July 1875: the militia fires on the workers in front of the north portal of the tunnel (period engraving)
Drawing by engineer Georg Specht, via Wikimedia Commons, public domain
Work in the Gotthard tunnel, 1875, illustrations from the Leipzig Illustrirte Zeitung
Wikimedia Commons, public domain
The death of Louis Favre in the tunnel, 19 July 1879 (period illustration)
Wikimedia Commons, public domain
Vincenzo Vela, Le vittime del lavoro, 1882, Galleria nazionale d’arte moderna, Rome
Wikimedia Commons, public domain
Commemorative sheet on the construction and opening of the Gotthard Railway, with portraits of the protagonists, 1892
Wikimedia Commons, public domain