The Gotthard Base Tunnel (GBT) is a railway tunnel in the heart of the Swiss Alps expected to open in 2016. With a route length of Шаблон:Convert and a total of Шаблон:Convert of tunnels, shafts and passages, it is the world's longest rail tunnel, surpassing the Seikan Tunnel in Japan.
Its main purpose is to increase total transport capacity across the Alps, especially for freight, notably between Germany and Italy, and more particularly to shift freight volumes from road to rail to reduce environmental damage caused by ever-increasing numbers of heavy lorries. A secondary benefit will be to cut the journey time for passenger trains from Zürich to Milan by about an hour and from Zürich to Lugano to 1-hour 40 minutes.
The project consists of two single-track tunnels. It is part of the AlpTransit project, also known as the New Railway Link through the Alps (NRLA), which includes the Lötschberg Base Tunnel between the cantons of Bern and Valais and the under construction Ceneri Base Tunnel (scheduled to open late 2019) to the south. It bypasses the Gotthardbahn, a winding mountain route opened in 1882 across the Saint-Gotthard Massif, which is now operating at capacity, and establishes a direct route usable by high-speed rail and heavy freight trains.
After 64 percent of Swiss voters accepted the AlpTransit project in a 1992 referendum, tunnel construction began in 1996. Drilling operations in the eastern tunnel were completed on 15 October 2010 in a breakthrough ceremony broadcast live on Swiss TV, and in the western tunnel on 23 March 2011. AlpTransit Gotthard Ltd. will hand over the tunnel to Swiss Federal Railways (SBB) in operating condition in December 2016. Total cost of the project is 9.8 billion Swiss francs, or US$10.3 billion.
The two portals are near the villages of Erstfeld, Uri, and Bodio, Ticino. Nearby are two other St. Gotthard Tunnels: the 1881 Gotthard Rail Tunnel and the 1980 Gotthard Road Tunnel.
When completed, the Gotthard Base Tunnel will be one of the longest tunnel construction projects in the world: 20 years of constant construction and preperation.
The route over the Gotthard Pass (or through its tunnels) is one of the most important passages through the Alps on the north-south axis. Traffic has increased more than tenfold since 1980 and the existing tunnels are at their capacity limits. A second (proposed) tunnel was to be constructed only if the volume of traffic rose above one million vehicles a year. In fact, the engineer Giovanni Lombardi, responsible for the construction of the road tunnel added, "one year after the inauguration, the tunnel was already seeing 2.5 million vehicles [today (23 October 2011) – about six million] annually. But the promise was forgotten".
To provide a faster and flatter passage through the Swiss Alps, the GBT cuts through the Gotthard Massif some Шаблон:Convert below the older tunnel. On the current track, the Gotthardbahn, only trains up to Шаблон:Convert when using two locomotives or up to Шаблон:Convert with an additional bank engine at the end of the train are able to pass through the narrow mountain valleys and through spiral tunnels climbing up to the portals of the old tunnel at a height of Шаблон:Convert above sea level.
When completed, standard freight trains of up to Шаблон:Convert will be able to pass this natural barrier. Because of ever-increasing international truck traffic, the Swiss voted in February 1994 for a shift in transportation policy (Traffic Transfer Act, enacted in October 1999).
The goal of both the laws (and the goal of the GBT, which is one of the means by which the law will achieve its objective) is to transport trucks, trailers and freight containers between southern Germany and northern Italy by rail to relieve the overused roads (intermodal freight transport and so-called rolling highway where the entire truck is transported) and to meet the political requirement of shifting as much tonnage as possible from truck transport to train transport, as required by the 'Alpine Protection Act' of 1994.
Passenger trains will be able to travel up to Шаблон:Convert through the GBT, reducing travel times for trans-Alpine train journeys by 50 minutes, and by one hour once the adjacent Zimmerberg and Ceneri Base Tunnels are completed.
AlpTransit Gotthard AG is responsible for construction. It is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Swiss Federal Railways (SBB-CFF-FFS).
To cut construction time in half, four access tunnels were built so that construction could start at four (a fifth was added later) different sites simultaneously (Erstfeld, Amsteg, Sedrun, Faido and Bodio).
The two tunnels are joined approximately every Шаблон:Convert by connecting galleries.
Trains can swap tunnels in the two multifunction stations (MFS) at Sedrun and Faido.
These stations will house ventilation equipment and technical infrastructure and will serve as emergency stops and evacuation routes upon tunnel completion.
Access to the Sedrun station site is by a level access tunnel Шаблон:Convert long from the valley floor near Sedrun, at the end of which two vertical shafts lead Шаблон:Convert down to the base tunnel level.
A proposal to construct a functioning railway station called Porta Alpina at this site was ruled out because of the small population served and the reduction in line capacity that would be caused by trains stopping there.
The final breakthrough in the east tube occurred on Friday 15 October 2010 at 14:17 +0200. The final breakthrough in the west tube occurred on Wednesday 23 March 2011 at 12:20.
On 16 December 2013, the operational test phase started on a 13 kilometer stretch in the southern section of the west tube between Faido and Bodio. Its purpose is to test the infrastructure and any anxilliary systems.
The contracts were awarded in sections:
| Year | Month | Total excavated | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| kilometres | miles | percent | ||
| 2004 | July | Шаблон:Convert | 34.1 | |
| 2005 | June | Шаблон:Convert | 48.6 | |
| 2006 | June | Шаблон:Convert | 61.3 | |
| 2007 | June | Шаблон:Convert | 67.6 | |
| 2008 | March | Шаблон:Convert | 70.4 | |
| April | Шаблон:Convert | 71.0 | ||
| July | Шаблон:Convert | 73.8 | ||
| August | Шаблон:Convert | 75.1 | ||
| October | Шаблон:Convert | 77.2 | ||
| 2009 | January | Шаблон:Convert | 81.6 | |
| March | Шаблон:Convert | 83.9 | ||
| May | Шаблон:Convert | 86.3 | ||
| June | Шаблон:Convert | 87.6 | ||
| July | Шаблон:Convert | 87.9 | ||
| August | Шаблон:Convert | 90.0 | ||
| September | Шаблон:Convert | 90.4 | ||
| October | Шаблон:Convert | 91.3 | ||
| November | Шаблон:Convert | 92.2 | ||
| December | Шаблон:Convert | 93.0 | ||
| 2010 | 1 January | Шаблон:Convert | 93.4 | |
| 1 February | Шаблон:Convert | 93.8 | ||
| 1 March | Шаблон:Convert | 94.7 | ||
| 1 April | Шаблон:Convert | 95.4 | ||
| 1 May | Шаблон:Convert | 95.8 | ||
| 1 June | Шаблон:Convert | 96.2 | ||
| 1 July | Шаблон:Convert | 96.6 | ||
| 1 August | Шаблон:Convert | 97.0 | ||
| 1 September | Шаблон:Convert | 97.5 | ||
| 1 October | Шаблон:Convert | 98.2 | ||
| 1 November | Шаблон:Convert | 98.7 | ||
| 1 December | Шаблон:Convert | 99.0 | ||
| 2011 | 1 January | Шаблон:Convert | 99.1 | |
| 1 February | Шаблон:Convert | 99.3 | ||
| 1 March | Шаблон:Convert | 99.6 | ||
| 1 April | Шаблон:Convert | 99.91 | ||
| 1 May | Шаблон:Convert | 99.94 | ||
| 1 June | Шаблон:Convert | 99.99 | ||
| 1 July | Шаблон:Convert | 100 | ||
