Gotthard tunnel

This article deals with the railway tunnel from 1882. For the railway tunnel from 2016 see Gotthard Base Tunnel . For the road tunnel from 1980 see Gotthard road tunnel . For the tunnel in Franconian Switzerland see the Nuremberg – Cheb railway line .

Gotthard tunnel Galleria del San Gottardo Gotthard vertex tunnel
North portal in Göschenen (the left tunnel entrance was only built in 1957 and joins the main tube after about 200 m in the mountain)
use	Double-track railway tunnel
traffic connection	Gotthard Railway
place	Gotthard massif , Alps
length	15,003 m
Number of tubes	1
Largest coverage	1717 m
construction
Client	Gotthard Railway Company
building-costs	227 million CHF
start of building	September 13, 1872 (south portal), October 24 (north portal)
completion	February 29, 1880 (piercing), May 22, 1882 (blessing)
planner	Entreprise du Grand Tunnel du Gothard
business
operator	SBB infrastructure
map
location
Coordinates
Göschenen	688010  /  168594
Airolo	689386  /  153661

 Map with all coordinates: OSM | WikiMap

The over 100 year old Gotthard tunnel ( Italian Galleria del San Gottardo ) was built as a vertex tunnel under the peaks of the Gotthard massif in a north-south direction. It was the central structure of the Gotthard Railway in Switzerland . The 15,003 meter long railway tunnel consists of a single, double- track tunnel tube between the villages of Göschenen in the canton of Uri and Airolo in the canton of Ticino . The tunnel was drilled and blasted around 1880 at an altitude of 1150 meters above sea level. The access ramps meander through the Reuss valley and the Ticino valley up to this height. The tunnel is an average of about 1100 meters Mountains covered.

Tunneling

prehistory

Alfred Escher

No sooner had railway construction started in the non-alpine areas of Europe than the idea of ​​connecting north and south of Europe with an alpine railway occurred in Switzerland. As early as 1847, the then chief engineer of the canton of Graubünden submitted a license request for the construction of a Lukmanier railway from Chur to Biasca . The license granted in 1853 then expired after the deadline.

In 1852, the head of the Swiss Federal Railway Office, Gottlieb Koller, presented a first project for the construction of a railway line through the Gotthard massif, and on August 19, 1853, a first Gotthard committee consisting of nine cantons was organized. Engineer Koller developed a first project for the route from Flüelen to Lake Langensee (123 km). In 1861, the Zurich engineer Kaspar Wetli measured the route from Erstfeld to Lugano in just five months, which is still considered a masterpiece of surveying technology (Otto Gelpke, Carl Koppe ).

After fierce arguments between supporters of the Gotthard and those who advocated the Lukmanier and Splügen variants , the engineers Wetli and Koller first presented the idea of ​​a tunnel under the Gotthard in 1863. When Alfred Escher , President of the Zurich-based Swiss Northeast Railway (NOB), finally approved the route over the Gotthard, the decision was made. In addition, the route over the Gotthard was the shortest. "For a long time I have been convinced that, as a result of the design of the railway network in Switzerland and our neighboring countries, a railway over the Gotthard would be much more beneficial to the interests of Zurich and the Northeast Railway than a railway over a Graubünden Alpine pass."

On August 7, 1863, fifteen cantons and the two railway companies Schweizerische Centralbahn (SCB) and Nordostbahn (NOB) founded the great Gotthard Association . The politician and banker Alfred Escher, probably the most influential Swiss personality of his time, became president of the committee and thus a bustling representative of the Gotthard idea. As a result, the project based on Wetli and Koller's plans was pushed forward by Anton Beckh and Robert Gerwig . From her and based on her assets, the Gotthard Railway Company (GB) was founded in Lucerne in 1871 as an international stock corporation.

At the Gotthard Conference in Bern in September 1869, chaired by Federal Councilor Emil Welti, it was stated that a continuous double-track adhesion railway was to be built with a maximum gradient of 26 ‰, in tunnels 23 ‰ and a minimum curve radius of 300 meters. A vertex tunnel was supposed to connect Göschenen and Airolo. The costs for the Gotthard route were to be 187 million francs, including around 60 million for the tunnel. Italy should take over 45 million, the new German Reich and Switzerland 20 million each, the rest should be taken on the capital market. The Franco-Prussian War delayed the signing for the time being. In 1869, Switzerland and Italy signed the so-called Gotthard Treaty of 1871 and finally the German Empire on October 28, 1871.

The Gotthard Railway Company was founded on December 6, 1871, also under the presidency of Alfred Escher. Financial control over international financing was held by Escher, who founded the Schweizerische Kreditanstalt in 1856 , which played an important role in the financing of the Gotthard Railway . “Since it was a question of the procurement of very considerable private capital, foreign finance had to be obtained, even if the participation of Swiss finance had to be secured for the time being with a quota of the private capital that had to be brought in to instill confidence abroad. In this direction too, there were endless negotiations to be maintained. The views of the domestic and foreign financial powers diverged widely and, moreover, were subject to constant change. A sea of ​​difficulties had to be overcome before the various elements could be brought about into a coherent program. After the ways and means had been prepared in this way, the Federal Council saw itself in a position to organize an international conference of those states which had shown the inclination to support the implementation of the Gotthard Railway. "

Project

Louis Favre

After an extremely short submission period of six weeks, seven offers were received. The Geneva company "Entreprise du Grand Tunnel du Gothard" of Louis Favre was awarded the contract ; on August 7, 1872 the contract drawn up by Escher was signed. The biggest competitor was the Italian company «Società Italiana di Lavori Pubblici» under the direction of Severino Grattoni. Grattoni had already built the longest tunnel in the world at 12 kilometers, the Mont Cenis Tunnel . He had also dealt with the Gotthard, checked the geology and carried out test drillings.

Favre, who had never built a tunnel longer than 1000 meters, undercut his competitors, accepted the ruinous contractual conditions and deposited a deposit of 8 million francs. He promised a construction period of eight years - a risky undertaking given the unknown geology. If the agreed construction time were exceeded, there was a threat of a fine of 5,000 francs per day for the first six months and 10,000 francs in the following period; in the event of early completion, the same amount was considered a bonus. If the delay is more than a year, the deposit would be forfeited. Favre hoped to be able to use the experience gained in the construction of the just completed Mont Cenis tunnel. He also hired miners and engineers there and bought the tunnel material used there.

construction

General

Construction began on the south portal on September 13, 1872 and on October 24 of the same year in the north. The construction crews moved towards each other using the ridge tunnel method (Belgian construction method), and work was carried out in three shifts around the clock.

Pneumatic locomotive with attached pressure vessel

Especially on the south side, one struggled with great technical difficulties from the beginning. The loads from unstable rock layers, which often changed their texture, sometimes every few dozen meters, as well as constant water ingress were enormous and persisted during the entire construction period; in addition, the temperature in the tunnel rose to 33 ° C in places, later to 40 ° C. At the end of 1872, the ridge tunnel in the north was only 101 m long, in the south only 18 meters were advanced by hand.

Pneumatic drill

The building contractor Louis Favre took over the first Sommeiller drilling machines from the Mont Cenis tunnel. To do this, he tried out the most important impact drills available on site. The two workshop bosses in Airolo and Göschenen further developed the existing machines: The machines should be less susceptible to repair and the impact drills should be equipped with an automatic drive. Seguin and Ferroux, the two workshop managers, were able to achieve significant progress: At the beginning, three machines had to be replaced every day, towards the end of construction only one machine every three days. The exhaust air from the pneumatic hammer drills also served to ventilate the tunnel sparingly. Six drilling machines each were mounted on mounts . The machines were used to drill holes about one meter deep, which were then filled with dynamite and blasted. The demand for dynamite was so great that an explosives factory was built in Bauen on Lake Uri .

Inadequate ventilation made breathing difficult in the tunnel, which was filled with explosive gases: if there was insufficient pressure, the machine was preferred and the ventilation had to wait. Because the poisonous dynamite fumes caused illnesses in the respiratory tract and eyes, the duration of the shift had to be reduced to five hours. Although more powerful machines from Belgium were used, Favre's schedule fell more and more behind, after a year not a single kilometer had been completed in the partial profile. Favre pushed the advance forward quickly and neglected the full outbreak. A further complicating factor was that all wooden supports broke under the underestimated mountain pressure and every broken meter had to be bricked up immediately.

In 1873, chief engineer Robert Gerwig of the Gotthard Railway Company commissioned the German mining engineer Friedrich Moritz Stapff to handle all the necessary geological investigations. At first he was assigned to the Airolo construction section, later he became head of the geological-mining department at the central construction management in Airolo. Stapff's tasks included updating the existing geological maps, observing geological conditions such as temperature conditions, water ingress, and the condition of the rock so that construction was not delayed. Stapff recorded all rock formations along the tunnel axis and collected a handpiece for each rock formation. One of these collections is now in the Museum of Transport.

Favre kept increasing the number of workers. A maximum of 1645 workers worked in Göschenen and 1302 workers in Airolo, mostly Italians from the poor rural areas of Piedmont and Lombardy. The miners and workers lived in dirty and overcrowded shacks and were financially exploited. A miner earned around 3.90 francs in an eight-hour shift. Two thirds of this wage was deducted for food and accommodation, the lamps and the oil for them - 30 cents a day - they had to pay themselves. They were also deducted five francs a month for clothing and two francs for the residence permit in Switzerland. Part of the earnings were paid out in coupons that could only be redeemed in the company's own shops.

Suppression of a workers' strike (1875)

On July 27, 1875, the miners went on strike in Göschenen . They left their workplaces, blocked the tunnel entrance and demanded, among other things, one franc more wages per day. A hastily assembled, overwhelmed police unit, 21 men from Altdorf, shot into the crowd, killing four Italian workers and seriously injuring several. 80 workers left after the incident.

Construction workers around 1880 in front of the south portal in Airolo

The event became known across Europe beyond Switzerland through accusing press reports. In particular, the background to the line-up of the police units involved was questioned. Under pressure from the Italian government, the Federal Council commissioned the Grisons Council of States, Hans Hold , to conduct an investigation. In the published report, Hold wrote that there was no reason for the strike, although he criticized the conditions in the tunnel and in the accommodations. In a second part of the report, which has remained under wraps for a long time, Hold described the catastrophic working and living conditions of the workers with no rights and criticized the authorities for taking no action against the exploitation of workers. After a further intervention by the Italian government, the Federal Council ordered a second investigation into the living conditions of the tunnel workers. The inspecting doctor Jakob Laurenz Sonderegger wrote in his report of March 30, 1876: “The misery in the quarters prepared for the workers is indeed beyond all concepts. In small, dull rooms, bed after bed is lined up - miserable, half-lazy straw sacks. " He mentions the bad air in overcrowded rooms with their foul-smelling oil lamps, where cooking had to be done next to the beds, the lack of fresh water, the dirt and the miserable hygienic conditions. The workers suffered from worm diseases , diarrhea and typhoid , and many had the silicosis they had contracted from the omnipresent granite dust in the tunnel. Numerous accommodations also left a lot to be desired, as the following excerpt from Sonderegger's report shows: «I found [1880] the conditions in Göschenen little changed [compared to 1876]; Favre's apartments are satisfactory, but extremely inadequate, the private apartments of citizens are partly good, partly tolerable, partly bad; the workers' barracks, built on speculation and rented out, as scandalous as before, especially in the large house next to the post office, inhabited by 240 people; castings ran down the outer walls and lay in heaps on corridors and in corners; the rooms and their chattels are stiff with dirt, the windows are tightly closed, the air is abominable, actually worse than in most pigsties because these have gate doors and air holes. A water pipe was built obediently, but in such a way that it was frozen and torn, did not deliver anything all winter and is still out of function even now, although it has not been seriously cold for weeks. "

Dangerous conditions came to light, better conditions were demanded but never enforced. Nobody felt responsible, and the construction work was already too late. So the conditions remained more or less unchanged. Under these conditions, Favre's schedule was completely mixed up. New investigations showed that the costs would exceed the estimate by more than 100 million francs. In June 1874, at a conciliation conference in Bern under the direction of the Federal Council, it was determined “that the completely excavated tunnel must never be more than 600 meters behind the tunnel face on either side ”. Favre did not adhere to it and the GB stopped payments, whereupon Favre and the Gotthard Railway Company got into disputes. The share price plummeted, and at times the construction was called into question. The refinancing was only possible because Italy and Germany agreed to make new payments after another international conference. Alfred Escher, who was responsible for the UK's financial debacle, had to resign under pressure from the Federal Council. The financing was secured by the Alpine Railway Act, with which the Swiss Confederation undertook to pay 4.5 million francs to the cantons that had participated in the Gotthard Railway.

Death of Favre (1879)

Favre's death in the tunnel

On July 19, 1879, while visiting the tunnel at kilometer 3, Favre felt unwell and died a few minutes later at the age of 53 of heart failure. In 1879, Ernest von Stockalper became the overall technical manager . Although Favre did not live to see the puncture, he was honored to be the first to cross the tunnel: On December 24, 1879, members of the northern construction crew heard the blasting noise in the south for the first time. Another 422 meters of rock separated the two construction sites. On February 28, 1880 at 6.45 p.m. a drill penetrated the still standing rock face from the south. Through this hole the workers handed their colleagues on the north side a tin can with a picture of Favre with the words: «Who would have been more worthy to cross the threshold first than Favre, who was a master, friend and father to his employees. Long live the Gotthard! "

Punch (1880)

On Sunday, February 29, 1880, shortly after 11 a.m., the actual breakthrough took place after seven years and five months. The deviations were only 33 centimeters laterally and 5 centimeters in height - a masterpiece of engineering and surveying technology at the time. The event was celebrated in the European media, which at the time was the longest tunnel in the world at 15 kilometers. "Today we can say that the entire press on the continent pays homage to the Gotthard Works and pays the tribute of sincere appreciation."

After the construction was completed, the Gotthard Railway Company demanded additional payments of millions from Favre's company, which ruined his estate. However, his daughter received a lifelong annual pension of 10,000 francs, which should enable her to set up the household according to middle-class circumstances.

Propulsion performance

The average daily output for the entire working time was 4.47 meters. In comparison, modern tunneling machines meanwhile (2009) have achieved daily outputs of 18 meters, for example when excavating the western tube of the Gotthard base tunnel . The costs amounted to just under CHF 227 million. An average of 5,472 people worked on the various construction sites.

Victim

199 workers died during construction. Of the 171 deaths mentioned in the accident list in the Federal Archives, 53 workers were crushed by wagons or locomotives, 49 slain by rocks, 46 killed by dynamite. 23 died differently, one of them drowned. According to official information, it was either coincidence or the victim himself to blame. However, numerous other men died in the course of the following years from the long-term effects of malnutrition, illnesses and injuries sustained during the tunnel construction. “Those workers who were fatally injured or terminally ill at the portals, but who only died after their return home, were not recorded as deaths. This corrective is gaining in importance because the sick and wounded were “sent home en masse” in Airolo. ” Many cases of the disease were caused by an infection with the hookworm Ancylostoma duodenale .

Building

The tunnel portal near Göschenen around 1889

The Gotthard tunnel runs straight from the north portal in Göschenen to shortly before the south portal of Airolo, where the tunnel in front of the portal curves to the east. The routing was easiest to accomplish with the surveying methods of the time with a direct line of sight, which is why a curve in the mountain, which is prone to survey errors, was dispensed with. During construction, the southern straightening tunnel was designed without an arch. This was only created when it was fully excavated and serves to adapt the line of the railway to the terrain. The southern straightening tunnel was later integrated into the military tunnel fortifications . On the north side of the tunnel, the adjustment to the southern apron of Göschenen station took place outside the tunnel.

The tunnel rises from Göschenen first with a 5.82 ‰ gradient over a length of 7822 meters until it reaches the apex. Then the tunnel in the direction of Airolo falls first to 2273 meters in length with a gradient of 0.58 ‰, then with 2.00 ‰ to 3793 meters and finally with 1.00 ‰ to 770 meters.

The ridge tunnel initially had a cross-section of around 6.7 m², the finished tunnel has a minimum cross-section of 45.1 m². The height from the bottom of the tunnel is 7.1 meters, the tunnel width at transom height below the semicircular vault is 8 meters. The planned amount of excavated material was 672,000 m³, from which a quantity of material to be rubbed of around 894,000 m³ was calculated.

As requested by the Gotthard Railway Company , the entire tunnel was lined. The thickness of the tunnel wall in the area of ​​the pressure zone in the part of the tunnel excavated from the north is up to three meters between kilometers 2.789 and 2.814. In the southern part of the tunnel, too, a thick brick vaulted ring had to be installed at 4.540 km. In the stable areas, the vault is between 0.4 and 0.7 meters thick. If possible, a vault was avoided.

Every hundred meters a protective niche is built into the wall for track runners and other personnel in the tunnel; every tenth niche was designed as a three meter deep and three meter wide chamber.

The whole tunnel is designed as a double-track line with a track center distance of 3.8 meters. Initially, Vignol or broad foot rails with a meter weight of 36.75 kilograms were installed, which lay on wooden sleepers and a 35 centimeter thick gravel bed. Today rails with the UIC profile 60 (SBB profile VI) and a meter weight of 60 kilograms are laid.

business

First train north through the Gotthard tunnel in 1881

The opening train in Bellinzona

Graphic timetable of the Gotthard Railway in 1899

Even before the opening of the Gotthard tunnel, from the autumn of 1881 mail sacks were being transported through the Gotthard tunnel, which was completed in shell. On the occasion of the official opening trip on June 1, 1882, Alois Zgraggen , the conductor of the last stagecoach that drove over the pass before the onset of winter, had the honor of carrying the first mail bag during the trip. Until the provisional Göschenen – Airolo railway operation could be started through the tunnel on January 1, 1882, travelers were still transported over the pass in columns of sledges. The passage through the tunnel took between 17 and 23 minutes after commissioning. The fare was CHF 2.70  in 1st class, CHF 1.90 in 2nd class and CHF 1.35 in 3rd class.

From May 22nd to 25th, 1882, the blessing of the tunnel was celebrated with over 600 guests from all over Europe. Alfred Escher did not take part. On June 1, 1882, the Gotthard Railway Company started continuous traffic between Immensee and Chiasso .

In 1888 a maximum of 32 trains per day drove through the tunnel according to the graphic timetable: 6 express trains, 8 passenger trains, 8 regular trains and up to 10 optional trains. During the night there were two shutdowns of 8 hours and 10 minutes.

In 1897 61 trains passed the tunnel every day. The railway maintenance work was made much more difficult by the smoke from the steam locomotives . For this reason, a ventilation system was retrofitted; this facility was built at the north portal in Göschenen in 1898/99 and put into operation on March 16, 1899 with the help of a stationary locomotive in a shed. From 1902, the water power of the Reuss with an output of 800 hp was used to drive the system. With the natural draft, air speeds of 2.6-3.6 m / s at the north portal and 2.2-3.0 m / s at the south portal were achieved.

From October 18, 1920, the trains ran through the tunnel electrically. In 1923, an average of 50 trains a day ran through the tunnel: 18 freight trains and 32 passenger trains .

In 1938 the tunnel was divided into two block sections in order to increase its efficiency; whereby the vacancy was reported by axle counters . In 1946 a tunnel station with double track changes was set up, which was remotely controlled from the electrical Integra signal box in Göschenen. As a result, the tunnel could be operated on a single track in times of low traffic, which made maintenance work easier, since the single-track section required for this was no longer 15 kilometers but only 7.5 kilometers long. In 1938, an average of 74 trains a day used the tunnel.

In 1954, the Airolo station was rebuilt for car loading through the Gotthard tunnel, the Göschenen station was rebuilt in 1957. In addition to the existing tunnel portal, a new tunnel portal was built to connect the tracks of the car loading ramp, the route of which joins the existing tunnel after 200 m.

In 1960, 197 trains a day ran through the tunnel, more than 70 percent of which were freight trains.

From 1962, the signaling and the track system were fundamentally rebuilt. Instead of the Gotthard-Mitte tunnel station , two track changes were created in the third points, the tunnel was divided into 15 block sections and the track change operation was introduced. The renovation took place in stages. The first stage started operations on April 12, 1962. It comprised the block positions 1 to 5 and 11 to 15, the middle section of the tunnel has not yet been rebuilt. The tunnel station also remained in operation. The track changes at the third points were not installed until the years 1977 to 1980.

With the opening of the Gotthard road tunnel , car loading was stopped on September 5, 1980, but was reactivated briefly after the fire in the road tunnel in 2001.

monument

The monument to Vincenzo Vela

In Göschenen, a monument in the cemetery commemorates Favre and the victims of the tunnel construction. It consists of a bust of Favre and a miner sitting on the ground in front of it. The inscription commemorates the victims of the labor.

In 1932, on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the completion of the tunnel construction, the monument to the Ticino artist Vincenzo Vela (1820–1891) was erected in Airolo. Vela created it in 1882 on its own initiative and without payment. It bears the title Vittime del lavoro (Victim of Labor) and is dedicated to the workers who died at the Gotthard railway tunnel. It's near the train station.

In the tunnel itself, the locations of the accidents are marked by inscribing the dates and abbreviations of the victims of the respective deaths on the wall in white letters.

Fortifications

Caponier of the fort

The fortifications around the tunnel include the guard house in Göschenen and the three-story artillery plant Fondo del Bosco and Forte Airolo in the south, which is unique in Switzerland . Its layout follows the design of the Austro-Hungarian general engineer inspector Daniel Freiherr von Salis-Soglio . It includes a combat and accommodation wing and flanking galleries. As guns against attacks from the south there were initially two 120 mm ring barrel cannons (1882, Friedrich Krupp AG ), two 120 mm ball mortars (1888, Grusonwerk AG Buckau), and five 84 mm ring barrel cannons (1880, Krupp in different casemates ), four 53 mm rapid fire cannons (1887, Krupp in retractable armored turrets) and twelve 84 mm bronze cannons (1871) in three capons . In addition, there were three observation turrets and a 1 kilometer long tunnel to the defense system directly at the entrance to the tunnel.

In addition to a guard, there were machine guns, flamethrowers and explosive chambers above the tunnel. The blasting chambers were created in the entrance gallery outside of the mountain range. Flanking galleries stood on the Stuei and infantry systems on the Foppa hill. Construction began in April 1887 and finished in summer 1890.

As part of the Reduit Plan in World War II , the fortresses of San Carlo and Sasso da Pigna were built in 1942 to protect the south portal of the tunnel with artillery. The old team barracks Fort Hospiz , built in 1894, was activated in order to be able to move defense troops quickly depending on the attack situation. The Army General Guisan showed the neighboring Axis powers that they were determined to defend themselves in the event of any attack on the supply route that was important for them and therefore also fought by the Allies . It was not until 1947 that the outdated facilities were abandoned as a fort and only used as accommodation. In the meantime it has been transformed into a museum object.

→ Main article : Gotthard fortress area

future

→ Main article : Gotthard Base Tunnel

After the Gotthard Base Tunnel went into operation on December 11, 2016, the more distant future of the mountain route is still open. In the short term, at least until December 2017, an hourly long-distance train from SBB will continue to run with stops in Flüelen, Erstfeld, Göschenen, Airolo, Faido and Biasca. The SBB presented a concept to continue to offer an attractive rail offer for excursions with hourly RegioExpress connections over the mountain route. It should FLIRTs vehicles are used, connections to the long-distance transport are provided in Erstfeld, Bellinzona and Lugano.

One of the considerations is to use the old route via the apex tunnel for freight trains and only allow faster passenger trains (200 km / h or 250 km / h) to run via the base tunnel during the day. The idea arises from the emerging route conflicts that already arise with an hourly passenger train and heavy freight trains that travel much slower at a maximum of 100–120 km / h. In the absence of suitable overtaking tracks, potential freight train routes in front of a passenger train must be sacrificed in the base tunnel (and in fact also on the access routes) in order to prevent the passenger train from running into a freight train ahead.

If viewed in isolation, freight train routes could be used well on the old mountain route. Freight traffic, however, depends on a high level of efficiency in the provision of services and, in terms of traction (one locomotive for 750 m / 1600 t), will be geared towards the flat track and the future 4 m corridor. In the long term, however, the BAV is keeping freight trains open through the Gotthard summit tunnel with regard to further lanes on the access lines. In the near future, the Gotthard line will also be used for the construction or renovation of the road tunnel for material transports or truck transport.

Göschenen train station with the north portal of the Gotthard tunnel, on the right a Matterhorn-Gotthard train

In 2009 the cantons of Uri and Ticino as well as the SBB drew up a feasibility study for the Gotthard transport routes as a UNESCO World Heritage site . The study came to the conclusion that the uniqueness for the history of technology and the objects preserved here is given. In cooperation with the Federal Office of Culture, which is responsible for the submissions to UNESCO , it was determined that until a dossier has been worked out, the SBB should complete the inventory of the railway line and develop a heritage-friendly operating concept for the mountain line. The cantons create the necessary spatial planning requirements. The preparation of a dossier takes two years, so that the award of the World Heritage label could be ready for the opening of the base tunnel.

Data

The length profile of Mont-Cenis and Gotthard tunnel with temperature information by Ernest de Stockalper (1883)

Length specifications

The various lengths are partly due to historical reasons:

• 14,900 m - information in the contract of work from 1872
• 14,920 m - first trigonometric calculation in 1875
• 14,892.4 m - determined after the breakthrough with a measuring stick
• 14,892.89 m - follow-up inspection from 1882
• 14,997.89 m - extension through the addition of mine chambers at the north and south entrances in 1887
• 15,002.64 m - official length according to the Federal Topography of 1938
• 15'045 m - At the south portal in 1971/72, an extension of 42 meters was carried out by building a road bridge.

Altitude above sea;

• North portal; 1106.89 m above sea level M. (as of 1980)
• South portal; 1141.74 m above sea level M. (as of 1980)
• Vertex; 1151.42 m above sea level M. (as of 1980)

Gradient in the length profile (north-south);

• 5.82 ‰ slope to 7822 m (to the apex)
• 0.58 ‰ gradient at 2273 m
• 2.00 ‰ gradient to 3793 m
• 1.00 ‰ gradient at 770 m

Tunnel profile

• 45.1 m² according to the plan
• approx. 6.7 m² ridge straightening tunnel
• 7.1 m from the tunnel floor
• 8.00 m width at height of the tower

Location based on route kilometers (from Immensee);

• 70.45 Göschenen station
• 75.37 Gotthard Nord service station (lane change)
• 78.72 vertex
• 80.69 canton border Uri / Ticino
• 81.32 Gotthard Süd service station (lane change)
• 86.21 Airolo station

Movies

• 200): Manfred Baur, Hannes Schuler: The breakthrough. The conquest of the Alps, part 2 (5 parts). Documentation. 45 min.
• In 2016, with the two-part Swiss television film Gotthard, the construction of the Gotthard tunnel and the living and working conditions at that time were staged in a lavishly dramatic manner, directed by Urs Egger . The historical facts are interspersed with fictional elements, including people.
• 2018: Film by Verena Schönauer: Myth Gotthard , documentary, 90 min. (With various researchers: Alexandra Binnenkade , Beat Frey, Hans Rudolf Fuhrer , Marcia Phillips, Johannes Rebsamen, Mauro Tonolla, Matthias Vollmer (geographer). Also the photo project by Jean Odermatt is introduced.)

literature

• Kilian T. Elsasser, Hans-Peter Bärtschi; Verkehrshaus der Schweiz (Ed.): Coal, electricity and rails. The railroad conquers Switzerland . NZZ, Zurich 1997, ISBN 3-85823-638-1 (catalog for the rail transport exhibition ).
• Kilian T. Elsasser, Lukas Vogel; Via-Storia - Center for Transport History (Ed.): The direct route to the south . The history of the Gotthard Railway. AS, Zurich 2007, ISBN 978-3-909111-42-8 (Italian edition under the title: La diretta via verso il sud ).
• Anton Eggermann, Karl J. Lanfranconi, Paul Winter, Robert Kalt, Walter Trüb: The railway through the Gotthard Orell Füssli Verlag Zurich 1981 ISBN 3-280-01258-9 .
• Joseph Jung, Alfred Escher 1819–1882. Rise, power, tragedy. 5th, revised edition. Verlag Neue Zürcher Zeitung NZZ Libro, Zurich 2014, ISBN 978-3-03823-876-8 .
• Joseph Jung (ed.), Alfred Escher's correspondence 1866–1882. Private railway companies in crisis, Gotthard Railway, political opposition, edited and commented on by Claudia Aufdermauer, Basil Böhni, Lisa Bollinger, Bruno Fischer, Josef Inauen, Joseph Jung, Björn Koch and Vincent Pick (= Alfred Escher. Briefe. An editing and research project of the Alfred Escher Foundation. Volume VI), Verlag Neue Zürcher Zeitung, Zurich 2015, ISBN 978-3-03810-034-8 .
• Joseph Jung (ed.), Alfred Escher between Lukmanier and Gotthard. Letters on the Swiss Alpine Railway Question 1850–1882, edited and commented on by Bruno Fischer, Martin Fries and Susanna Kraus, with contributions by Joseph Jung and Helmut Stalder. (= Alfred Escher. Letters. An edition and research project of the Alfred Escher Foundation, Volume I). Verlag Neue Zürcher Zeitung, Zurich 2008, ISBN 978-3-03823-379-4 .
• Joseph Jung, Alfred Escher 1819–1882. The departure to modern Switzerland, Verlag Neue Zürcher Zeitung, Zurich 2006, ISBN 3-03823-236-X .
• Karl Lüönd, Karl Iten: Our Gotthard . Ringier, Zurich 1980, ISBN 3-85859-137-8 .
• Werner Meyer, Heinz Dieter Finck (photos): 1291, the story . The beginnings of the Confederation, Silva-Verlag, Zurich 1990. (without ISBN)
• Hans Peter Nething: The Gotthard . Eine Pass- und Verkehrsgeschichte, Ott, Thun 1976. ISBN 3-7225-6338-0 (the 4th, revised edition of the book “About the Gotthard” published in 1935).
• Rennhardt: The Gotthard ( SJW booklet No. 1594).
• Artur Wyss-Niederer: Sankt Gotthard, Via Helvetica . Edition Ovaphil, Lausanne 1979.
• NZZ Folio 07/1995 - Subject: Gotthard .

Web links

Commons : Gotthard tunnel  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Wikisource: Agreement between Germany, Italy and Switzerland to build and subsidize a railway over the St. Gotthard. October 28, 1871.  - Sources and full texts

Wiktionary: Gotthard tunnel  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

• Gotthard tunnel on the ETHorama platform
• Gotthard tunnel (video in the cab, surveying)
• Gotthard tunnel. In: Viktor von Röll (ed.): Encyclopedia of the Railway System . 2nd Edition. Volume 5: Driver's Freight Tariffs . Urban & Schwarzenberg, Berlin / Vienna 1914, pp  361 -364 (Historical description of the tunnel).
• Gotthard Railway Unesco World Heritage Site (at www.museumsfabrik.ch)
• Homepage of the Alfred Escher Foundation (Everything about Alfred Escher and the Alfred Escher Foundation)
• Digital letter edition of the Alfred Escher Foundation (all known 5018 letters from and to Alfred Escher accessed online)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ For biographical information on Alfred Escher see: Joseph Jung, Alfred Escher 1819–1882. Rise, power, tragedy. 5th, revised edition. Verlag Neue Zürcher Zeitung NZZ Libro, Zurich 2014, ISBN 978-3-03823-876-8 .
2. ^ Letter from Alfred Escher to Johann Jakob Blumer, 11/12. October 1863 (FA Tschudi), in: Joseph Jung, Alfred Escher 1819–1882. The departure to modern Switzerland, Verlag Neue Zürcher Zeitung, Zurich 2006, p. 566.
3. ↑ For a detailed list of the construction costs see: Joseph Jung, The Financing of the Gotthard Railway: Alfred Eschers Meisterstück, in: Joseph Jung (Ed.), Alfred Eschers Briefwechsel 1866–1882. Private railway companies in crisis, Gotthard Railway, political opposition, (= Alfred Escher. Letters. An editing and research project of the Alfred Escher Foundation. Volume VI), Verlag Neue Zürcher Zeitung, Zurich 2015, pp. 214–225, ISBN 978- 3-03810-034-8 .
4. ↑ Joseph Jung, Alfred Escher 1819–1882. The departure to modern Switzerland, Verlag Neue Zürcher Zeitung, Zurich 2006, pp. 1018-1019.
5. ^ J. Kauffmann: The construction of the Gotthard tunnel . In: Centralblatt der Bauverwaltung , Vol. 2 (1882) No. 14, pp. 117–119 and No. 15, pp. 127–129
6. ^ Adolphe Braun : Photographic views of the Gotthard Railway . Dornach in Alsace, ca.1875.
7. ↑ Mark Schwyn: Friedrich Moritz Stapff - the geologist at the Gotthard . In: Coal, Electricity and Rails - The Railway Conquers Switzerland . Swiss Museum of Transport (ed.), Zurich 1998, p. 165.
8. ↑ Hannes Nussbaumer: The brutal Gotthard. Tages-Anzeiger, October 12, 2010, accessed December 17, 2016 . 
9. ↑ Hansjürg Zumstein: A secret report exposed the exploitation of the Gotthard. In: Website for the doc film “Gotthard - Das Jahrhundertbauwerk” on SRF 1. Schweizer Radio und Fernsehen (SRF), December 12, 2016, accessed on December 17, 2016 . 
10. ↑ Joseph Jung, Alfred Escher 1819–1882. Rise, power, tragedy. 5th, revised edition. Verlag Neue Zürcher Zeitung NZZ Libro, Zurich 2014, p. 390, ISBN 978-3-03823-876-8 .
11. ^ Landbote, March 4, 1880, Zurich 1880.
12. ^ Konrad Kuoni: The Gotthard wins the Alpenbahnringen . In: Coal, Electricity and Rails . Verkehrshaus (ed.), Zurich 1998, p. 163.
13. ^ Protocol of the Gotthard Railway Management, October 3, 1872, pp. 636–637, in: Joseph Jung, Alfred Escher 1819–1882. The departure to modern Switzerland, Verlag Neue Zürcher Zeitung, Zurich 2006, p. 624.
14. ↑ R. Peduzzi, J.-C. Piffaretti: Ancylostoma duodenale and the Saint Gothard anemia. In: British Medical Journal . Volume 287, number 6409, 1983, pp. 1942-1945, PMID 6418279 , PMC 1550193 (free full text).
15. ↑ infektionsbiologie.ch: Gotthard tunnel and Ancylostoma .
16. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g h i j k l} The railway through the Gotthard , ISBN 3-280-01258-9 , p. 110.
17. ↑ ^{a b} Gotthard tunnel. In: Viktor von Röll (ed.): Encyclopedia of the Railway System . 2nd Edition. Volume 5: Driver's Freight Tariffs . Urban & Schwarzenberg, Berlin / Vienna 1914, pp  361 -364.
18. ↑ The railway through the Gotthard p. 109.
19. ^ Karl Lüönd, Karl Iten: Our Gotthard . Ringier, Zurich 1980, ISBN 3-85859-137-8 , p. 143.
20. ↑ Detailed explanations of the celebrations, including: Joseph Jung (ed.), Alfred Escher between Lukmanier and Gotthard. Letters on the Swiss Alpine Railway Question 1850–1882, edited and commented on by Bruno Fischer, Martin Fries and Susanna Kraus, with contributions by Joseph Jung and Helmut Stalder. (= Alfred Escher. Letters. An edition and research project of the Alfred Escher Foundation, Volume I). Verlag Neue Zürcher Zeitung, Zurich 2008, pp. 666–668, ISBN 978-3-03823-379-4 .
21. ↑ ^{a b} Ventilation system based on the Saccardo system for the Gotthard tunnel in Göschenen . In: Schweizerische Bauzeitung . tape 33 , no. 24 , 1899, pp. 216–220 , doi : 10.5169 / seals-21350 .
22. ↑ ^{a b c d} Karl Oehler: On increasing the capacity of the Gotthard tunnel . In: Schweizerische Bauzeitung . tape 80 , no. 37 , 1962, pp. 631–635 , doi : 10.5169 / seals-66228 .
23. ^ The railway through the Gotthard , ISBN 3-280-01258-9 , pp. 143-144.
24. ↑ http://www.lokifahrer.ch/Strecken/autozuege.htm
25. ↑ tagesanzeiger.ch on this
26. ↑ Vincenzo Vela ( Memento of the original from June 3, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
27. ↑ Offers from the Gotthard Adventure World Museum, including historical fortresses
28. ↑ Blick, July 4, 2014 SBB presents concept for Gotthard mountain route
29. ↑ SBB Blog June 19, 2014: Gotthard mountain route ( Memento of the original from February 27, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
30. ^ Kilian T. Elsasser, Toni Häfliger: Gotthard traffic landscape . In: Werk, Bauen, Wohnen . 9-2010, pp. 26-31.
31. ^ HG Wägli: Swiss Rail Network, p. 151.
32. ↑ HG Wägli Railway Profile Switzerland 2010 edition p. 69.
33. ↑ Gotthard, part 1 and 2 (page at ZDF , and a Gotthard page at 3sat , 2016)

Remarks

1. ↑ If the new national survey 1995 is used , there may be deviations.