Swiss build longest tunnel
GENEVA — A massive drilling machine called Sissi today was to chew through the last few inches of rock in the way of the creation of the world's longest tunnel.
The anticipated completion of the 35.4-mile Gotthard Base rail tunnel is being hailed as an environmental triumph as much as an unprecedented engineering feat.
The $10 billion tube bored through the Gotthard massif, including the 8200-foot Piz Vatgira, along the route to Italy. It's part of a larger project to shift the haulage of goods from roads to rails, spurred mainly by a concern that heavy trucks were destroying the pristine Alpine landscape.
Swiss voters, who are paying over $1,300 each to fund the project, approved its construction in a series of referendums almost 20 years ago and will have to wait several more before it is ready for rail traffic.
Conservationists say the money was worth spending even if after 23 years of construction it will only shave one hour off the time trains travel between northern Europe and Italy.
"The Swiss love their mountains," said Thomas Brolli. The former journalist is a campaigner with the group Alpen-Initiative, which claimed a surprise victory in 1994 with a referendum to limit the number of heavy goods trucks allowed to cross the Alps each year to 650,000 — halving the current load — within two years of the tunnel's opening. "Every Swiss has a link to the Alps, whether they were born there or go there on holiday," said Brolli.
Some 1.2 million trucks currently thunder through Switzerland's mountainous countryside every year, harming rare plants and animals while adding to the erosion that is the Alps' worst enemy.
With their beloved mountains crumbling, the Swiss decided that instead of simply stopping foreign trucks from passing through the country they would put their tunnel-building expertise to good use by completing a plan first conceived over 60 years ago.
When it is opened for traffic in 2017, the Gotthard Base Tunnel will supplant Japan's 33.5-mile Seikan Tunnel as the world's longest — excluding aqueducts — and allow millions more tons of goods to be transported quickly through the Alps by rail.
A further $14 billion is being spent on some shorter tunnels and high-speed rail links that will ultimately allow high-speed trains from Germany to continue through to Italy at up to 155 miles an hour, making rail journeys increasingly economically competitive.
For European transport ministers, who were scheduled today to watch the breakthrough ceremony live from a meeting in Luxembourg, the project represents the first of a series of major rail tunnels meant to take the strain off congested Alpine road links. A second would connect Lyon, France, to Turin, Italy, while a third would largely replace the Brenner road tunnel between Austria and Italy — currently one of the main transport arteries through the Alps.
Those projects are still a long way from completion and could yet be derailed by spending cuts as European governments scramble to fill holes in their budgets rather than drill new ones into the mountains.
