Move over Chunnel

[Jammrock]

http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/europe/10/15/switzerland.rail.tunnel.gotthard/index.html?hpt=T2

A 57 km tunnel through the Swiss alps just finished drilling. Though it won't be operational until 2017, it's still an impressive feat. I wonder if it will be nickname the Swunnel?

[Brian Ellis]

The Chunnel is, I think, about the 10th longest. This one is the longest in the world, supplanting a Japanese one. I have never heard it called anything but the Gothard Base tunnel to distinguish it from the existing Gothard tunnel and the Gothard road tunnel. All very sexual having Gothard! One of the amazing things about the base tunnel is how few fatal accidents there have been in its construction, only nine. Of these, I think six were due to human error and 3 to simple fatality. This is just over 6 km per fatal accident, compared with about 20 fatal accidents per kilometre with the original Gothard tunnel.

[Dr Mordrid]

I've been following the GBT for a while.

Great engineering, as usual, from the Swiss. Gotta love those guys

[Brian Ellis]

They have now measured the positional difference of the tunnels pierced from both ends. It is 8 cm representing an error of 1.4 ppm. Not bad over 57 km!

Another unique thing with this tunnel is that it is a straight line. The reason for this is that they are hoping that the freight trains will be travelling through at 240 km/h in order to provide competition with road traffic. 40 t trucks will drive on to the train at the frontier at Basel and drive off again at the frontier at Chiasso. This will take about one hour 40 min as opposed to over six hours by road, assuming no traffic jams. Apart from this advantage of time, it is hoped that the Canton of Uri will have cleaner air as all these trucks are currently belching out diesel fumes as they climb nearly 1000 m to the road tunnel in a narrow but deep valley. It makes sense!