The world's longest rail tunnel, in numbers

[WhiteTara]

https://www.yahoo.com/news/worlds-longest-rail-tunnel-numbers-053053939.html?nhp=1

Geneva (AFP) - The world's longest rail tunnel, which runs under the Alps and took 17 years to build, is inaugurated on Wednesday.

Here are four key numbers about the project, called the Gotthard Base Tunnel (GBT).

- 57 -

At a length of 57 kilometres (34.5 miles) the GBT will overtake Japan's 53.9-kilometre Seikan tunnel as the longest rail tunnel in the world.

A total of 152 kilometres of tunnel was carved through the mountain. That figure includes separate tubes for northern and southern travel, as well as cross passages and access tunnels.

- 1882 -

That was the year the first rail route through the Gotthard pass opened, a landmark in Swiss history that helped boost trade through the Alpine nation, which had previously been arduous to cross.

Swiss engineer Carl Eduard Gruner first sketched the idea for a rail tunnel under the Alps at the Gotthard Pass in 1947.

Sixty-nine years later, at a cost of just over 12 billion Swiss francs ($12 billion, 11 billion euros), the Gotthard Base Tunnel is set to open.

[muriel_volestrangler]

1. I can see why they want it - the current track literally goes round in circles

just to gain height. It has several points at which the track turns into a tunnel in a circle with diameter of about 500 metres, to re-emerge and cross itself on a bridge; and a couple of hairpin bends to gain height too: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gotthard_Base_Tunnel

[A HERETIC I AM]

2. There was a documentary about the rescue of a stuck boring machine

Seems during the boring process one of the massive machines got stuck because the material above the cutting head was too soft. They had to back out one of the other machines and bore a new tunnel to rescue the multi million dollar stuck unit.