The Final Breakthrough

After 15 years of lethal construction work in the Swiss Alps, the Gotthard Base Tunnel (rail link) was finally completed when a giant drilling machine, cut through the last remaining rock to connect both ends. October 15, 2010, is surely a date to remember! On this day, miners cheered, engineers shook hands, tunnel workers paid tribute to their colleagues who had died on the construction site and the world watched awestruck as a drilling machine made way through the final section of the world’s longest tunnel. Expected to be operational from 2016-17, the Gotthard base tunnel will beat Japan’s 53.9-km Seikan tunnel, which is currently the world’s longest. Project details A direct and level route catering to high-speed passenger and freight trains stimulated the idea of the Gotthard base tunnel project whose cost is being estimated at Sfr 10 billion. The project is a part of the Sfr 20-billion AlpTransit project to build a new rail link through the Alps. The project comprises the drilling of numerous tunnels, of which the Gotthard base tunnel is the longest. This new rail link is expected to lower the time of travel between Zurich and Milan by 60 minutes as trains can speed through the tunnel at 250 km per hour.  Once fully functional, around 300 trains will run through Gotthard every day. AlpTransit Gotthard GA, a fully owned subsidiary of the Swiss Federal Railways, is in charge of the tunnel construction work. The tunnel, which has a diameter of 9.5 m, comprises an interesting layout, encompassing two parallel, single-track tunnels linked by connecting galleries every 180 m allowing for faster excavation work while diminishing construction time by two to three years. Interestingly, most of the excavation work is being conducted using four imposing tunnel boring machines. Construction work has been split into five sections for optimising cost and time. They are Erstfeld (7.4 km), Amsteg (11.4 km), Sedrun (6.8 km), Faido (14.6 km) and Bodio (16.6 km). Strict environmental control is in place for the work sites, material supply chain and soil and waste disposal.  Contracts awarded This was the first project of its kind for which foreign contractors were allowed to bid. The construction work for the various sections of the tunnel was awarded to various international construction companies. • Transtec Gotthard was awarded the railway infrastructure through Gotthard• ARGE AGN was awarded the Amsteg and Erstfeld tunnel building sections• ARGE Transco-Sedrun was awarded the Sedrun tunnel building section• ARGE TAT was awarded the Bodio and Faido tunnel building sections• Herrenknecht AG was the supplier of four tunnel drilling machines for the Gotthard base tunnel• Rowa AG was the supplier of the backup train for the tunnel boring machine at Amsteg and the four driving installations at Sedrun• SIEMAG M-TEC was the supplier of the shaft conveyor belt system for the Sedrun shaft• ABB Switzerland was the supplier of the high-pressure pump system in Sedrun• ARGE Los 208 was awarded the Amsteg water treatment consortium. The project engineers involved in the Gotthard tunnel construction are: • Basler & Ofmann (approach lines north)• IG GBT South (Gotthard base tunnel south)• GoTTrazione (16.7 hertz power supply of the Gotthard base tunnel)• Consorzio DSPP (local site management of the Camorino connection)• Consorzio Ingegneri Piano di Magadino CIPM (Ceneri)• ITC (Ceneri base tunnel at Vigana, Sigirino and Vezia). It has already been estimated by the EU commission that freight traffic will grow by as much as 75 per cent in 2010. Therefore, there is no doubt that the new rail link will ease traffic issues in addition to allowing fast and economical freight transportation.