Bruggwald tunnel

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Bruggwald tunnel
Bruggwald tunnel
South portal of the Bruggwald tunnel with Thurbo - GTW as S8 .
On the right is the main line that went into operation in 1910.
use Railway tunnel
traffic connection Romanshorn – St. Gallen
place Wittenbach , St. Gallen
length 1731 m
from 2018: 1741 mdep1
Number of tubes 1
construction
building-costs 1.3 million CHF
start of building December 22, 1907
completion October 3, 1910
business
operator SOB
location
Bruggwald Tunnel (Canton of St. Gallen)
Red pog.svg
Red pog.svg
Coordinates
North portal Wittenbach 747738  /  256783
Galgentobel south portal 747144  /  258410

The Bruggwald Tunnel is a 1.7 km long, single-lane Swiss railway tunnel on the Romanshorn – St. Gallen between Wittenbach and St. Gallen St. Fiden . The tunnel was put into operation in 1910 by the Bodensee-Toggenburg-Bahn (BT) and has belonged to the Swiss Southeast Railway (SOB) since 2001 . It has a constant gradient of 12 per thousand towards the north portal.

construction

South portal of the tunnel Bruggwald, forward the gallows Tobel bridge over the railway line St. Gallen Rorschach .
Pre-cut at the north portal with trolleys for removing rubble.

The 1731 meter long Bruggwald tunnel was built at the behest of the St. Gallen government council . The (BT) preferred a mostly open route through the Galgentobel as a more cost-effective solution.

The Bruggwald tunnel was the largest and most difficult object in the Romanshorn - St. Fiden section when the BT was built . Of 22 December 1907 to 3 June 1908, the construction was approved by the BT in directing operated. In June 1908, work on the construction company AG Albert Süss & Cie. awarded from Basel. On the north side, because of the lengthy work on the pre-cut, construction of the actual tunnel could only begin at the end of August 1908.

The tunnel has a small curve with a radius of 5000 meters in the middle over a length of 62 meters. It became necessary because of a measurement error.

The Bruggwald tunnel is only slightly overlaid. In the southern section, it is largest at 70 meters. The excavated material consisted of marl and sandstone . The marl became unstable on contact with air and water. Attempts were made to counter these geological adversities by installing struts . On 21 May 1909, was carried breakdown of the sole tunnel.

  • Northern entrance of the Bruggwald tunnel near Wittenbach

  • Workers in the Bruggwald tunnel

  • Wooden struts in the tunnel

Collapse of the tunnel

On June 22, 1909, a 30-meter-long section of the tunnel under construction, 170 to 200 meters away from the Wittenbach tunnel portal, collapsed. The collapse widened to open daybreak after a short time under the influence of pouring rain . Twelve workers were buried, seven of whom were killed. Two workers were rescued with serious injuries, two remained uninjured and were quickly rescued.

Eleven days after the disaster, the young Italian Giovanni Pedersoli was rescued from the rubble. Six days after the collapse, workers heard the voice of the buried colleague. A small rescue tunnel was built to rescue the trapped. After several months in hospital, Pedersoli returned to his homeland.

An official investigation revealed that the construction company had not provided sufficient support for the already completed vault. The construction management attributed the collapse to the carelessness of the workers. The construction company also wanted to stop the rescue work prematurely and let the construction work continue when the dead had not all been recovered. The result was a construction workers' strike .

  • Collapse site of the Bruggwald tunnel.

  • Tunnel shaft with wooden construction of the shaft support.

  • Rescued worker Giovanni Pedersoli in the St. Gallen Cantonal Hospital.

  • The place marked with two shoes shows the place where the buried Pedersoli was found.

Operation and modifications

The trains running to Wittenbach run from the double-lane St. Fiden – Mörschwil track via the “Spange” to the south portal of the Bruggwald tunnel.

On October 3, 1910, the Romanshorn – St. Fiden opened with the Bruggwald tunnel. The line has been operated electrically since January 24, 1932.

In 2008, the Swiss Southeast Railway (SOB) improved the tunnel's safety and installed a handrail with emergency lighting. In 2009 the tunnel was extended to the last 68 meters at the south portal in order to incorporate a switch. The so-called clip connects since the SOB line with the double track Mörschwil-St.Fiden the SBB , so that the features of the SOB between the Bruggwald tunnel and the St. Fiden station cross flying can.

In 2018, the railway line will be closed for a renewal of the tunnel for 9 weeks, 9 July to 9 September. In addition to a reorganization of the vault and the dehydration, the current track is a fixed carriageway replaced and the contact line by a conductor rail replaces. After the renovation, double-deck cars can also run through the tunnel . The tunnel will be extended by 10 meters so that the Studerswilerbach can be overturned at the portal on the Wittenbach side.

swell

Web links

Commons : Bruggwaldtunnel  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c SOB, media release (ed.): Three at one stroke / tunnel repairs on a grand scale . December 7, 2017 ( sob.ch [accessed on July 23, 2018]).
  2. ^ The Bodensee-Toggenburgbahn In: Schweizerische Bauzeitung . Volume 52 (1908), Issue 12 (archived in E-Periodica of the ETH-Bibliothek , PDF; 3.5 MB).
  3. ↑ To home. In: Liechtensteiner Volksblatt. December 17, 1909, accessed January 1, 2016 .
  4. ↑ a b Peter Müller: Italiani, tuemmer streigge! In: rails, gravel, sweat. 100 years of Romanshorn – Wattwil. Strings. Ostschweizer Kulturmagazin, October 2010, accessed on January 1, 2016 .
  5. ^ The collapse in the Bruggwaldtunnel of the Bodensee-Toggenburgbahn In: Schweizerische Bauzeitung . Volume 54 (1909), Issue 1 (archived in E-Periodica of the ETH Library , PDF; 1.9 MB).
  6. ^ Hans G. Wägli: Swiss rail network and Swiss rail profile CH + . AS Verlag, Zurich 2010, ISBN 978-3-909111-74-9 .
  7. ↑ Odilia Hiller: Lights against tunnel dramas. In: Tagblatt Online. December 8, 2008, archived from the original on March 4, 2016 ; accessed on January 1, 2016 .
  8. ↑ Stefanie Schnelli: A tunnel is wide. In: Tagblatt Online. August 5, 2009, archived from the original on March 4, 2016 ; accessed on January 1, 2016 .
  9. ↑ Fredi Kurth: It is slowly getting faster. In: Tagblatt Online. September 16, 2011, accessed January 1, 2016 .
  10. ^ Wittenbach - St. Gallen St. Fiden: Suspension of railway operations - Bahnonline.ch . In: Bahnonline.ch . July 6, 2018 ( bahnonline.ch [accessed on July 23, 2018]).