The Gotthard Base Tunnel
Erstfeld, Bodio
Further reading: Gotthard Base Tunnel (Wikipedia)
On 1 June 2016, after seventeen years of work, the Gotthard Base Tunnel was opened: 57 kilometres with twin tubes, dug almost on the level beneath the massif, up to 2,300 metres below the surface. It is the heart of AlpTransit, the New Rail Link through the Alps approved by the people in 1992.
A tunnel wanted by the citizens. In Switzerland major projects go to the ballot box, and AlpTransit was no exception. On 27 September 1992 the people approved the New Rail Link through the Alps, with the Gotthard and Lötschberg base tunnels, by 63.6 per cent. On 20 February 1994 they accepted, by 51.9 per cent, the Alpine Initiative, which wrote into the Constitution the transfer of transit freight from road to rail. On 29 November 1998, by 63.5 per cent, they approved the funding of the major public transport projects. Without these three votes the longest railway tunnel in the world would not exist: it is a work decided by the citizens.
On 15 October 2010 the boring machine digging from Faido reached the one that had set off from Sedrun: this was the main breakthrough, followed live all over Switzerland. The four large tunnel boring machines used on the site dug more than 85 kilometres of tunnel through the rock in all.
Trains cross the Alps without climbing, freight moves from road to rail, and Lugano and Milan come closer to Zurich. One hundred and thirty-four years after the first tunnel, the Gotthard is once again the symbolic passage between north and south.
From the driver's cab of the Gottardino special train, at the Sedrun emergency stop, October 2016
Photo: Kecko, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0
The cutting head of a boring machine on display in Erstfeld during the opening days, June 2016
Photo: Roy Egloff, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
The south portal at Bodio with a works train, May 2015
Photo: Daniel Friedlos, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0
The Gottardino special train in the Sedrun multifunction station, 2016
Photo: KlausFoehl, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
The «Gottardo 2016» opening celebration near the south portal, 4 June 2016
Photo: Zacharie Grossen, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
The north portal at Erstfeld in the snow, April 2017
Photo: Zacharie Grossen, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
The north portal construction site at Erstfeld, 2009
Photo: KlausFoehl, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0
A cutting head from the base tunnel at the Swiss Museum of Transport, Lucerne
Photo: James Petts, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0
The Faido crossover during construction, 2014
Photo: Hannes Ortlieb, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0 de
The access curve to the Sedrun emergency stop, 2016
Photo: Kecko, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0
One of the first passenger trains leaves the south portal amid the crowd, 4 June 2016
Photo: Zacharie Grossen, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
The Re 460 locomotive in AlpTransit Gotthard livery, 2013
Photo: Heitersberg, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
The final breakthrough of the base tunnel, 15 October 2010
AlpTransit Gotthard AG, official YouTube channel
How a tunnel boring machine works: animation
AlpTransit Gotthard AG, official YouTube channel
The ventilation of the tunnel
AlpTransit Gotthard AG, official YouTube channel
Laying the slab track (in German)
AlpTransit Gotthard AG, official YouTube channel
Surveying in the tunnel (in German)
AlpTransit Gotthard AG, official YouTube channel
Twenty years of AlpTransit Gotthard AG (in German)
AlpTransit Gotthard AG, official YouTube channel