With the inauguration of the Ceneri base tunnel, the finishing touches are being put on the most colossal infrastructure project in recent Swiss history. All have their opponents too, whether political, environmental or from the communities affected by these massive construction projects. However, the GBT, which opened in 2016, is only part of the story. The inauguration of the Ceneri is the final step in an engineering adventure that started 30 years ago. For one thing, rail is not the solution for all transport needs. The “goat-man” that played such a key role in this performance bore a striking resemblance to Baphomet , which in recent decades has become one of the key symbols used to represent Satan in the occult community. Shorter journey times meant that passenger numbers increased by 30% in the months after it opened. From next year, travellers will be able to get to Milan from Zurich in less than three-and-a-half hours. Almost 10,000 passengers and around 67,000 tonnes of freight pass through the Gotthard tunnel each day putting the structure to the test. Measuring over 57 km and costing over 11 billion Euros, the Gotthard Base Tunnel is world’s longest and most expensive tunneling project in History. And for another, having tunnels which represent the state of the art in rail technology are of little use without adequate access routes to get to them. At the end of 2016, the first high-speed trains will travel through the Gotthard Base Tunnel at speeds of 200 to 250 kilometers per hour. The presence of high-level guests at the opening shows that the new tunnel is … The impact will be significant on international traffic, too. "They overcome a major historical constraint on the main north-south rail axis across the Alps. The Weird Gotthard Tunnel Opening Ceremony One Year Later Donate. The museum is located in a 1834 building which used to … The museum is located in a 1834 building which used to … When the 39.7-mile, $6.6 billion tunnel system is completed in 2028, it will take the GBT's crown as the world's longest rail tunnel. Because, with all its endless delays and compromises, the Swiss direct democracy system has a significant advantage: once a project has been ratified by voters, it can be implemented without further delay. The link above begins near the end of the ceremonial rite, 6 hours and 26 minutes into the lengthy video that captures the festivities surrounding the opening of the Gotthard Base Tunnel in Switzerland. Nov 13, 2003 Legal challenges, political opposition and protests, occasionally violent in nature, have beset this project from the outset, particularly on the Italian side. Sedrun was intended to become by far the world's deepest underground passenger station, known as Porta Alpina, with 2,600-foot-deep elevator shafts linking the platforms to the villages above, but the plan was dropped as uneconomic in 2012. However, there is no reason to expect a sudden surge in road-to-rail transfer. The 21.5-mile Lötschberg Base Tunnel has provided a shorter, flatter and more direct route under the Bernese Alps since 2007. The Gotthard Tunnel (German: Gotthardtunnel, Italian: Galleria del San Gottardo) is a 15,003 m (49,221 ft) long railway tunnel and forms the summit of the Gotthard Railway in Switzerland. Dec 10, 2016 Translated from Italian by Terence MacNamee. The transport revolution might still take a while. Excavation of the two 35-mile running tunnels was completed in 2011 and employed a combination of traditional drilling/blasting and massive tunnel boring machines with 32-foot diameter cutting faces and miles of conveyor belts to carry rock away for recycling. Now Switzerland’s collection is about to welcome a new addition: the 15.4-kilometre Mount Ceneri tunnel, where the ribbon is to be cut on September 4 in a scaled-down, Covid-conscious ceremony. Twenty minutes later, the sunlight on the southern side can be dazzling as the train bursts out of the Bodio portal and into what, on some days, feels like a different world. On its own, the Mount Ceneri tunnel cost about CHF3.6 billion to complete. The Swiss have made a big investment in smoothing the flow of freight between Europe's major economies while ensuring rail remains a competitive option for moving goods.". Opened between 1848 and 1854, the current mountain railway was the first to traverse the Alps and is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Excavation on this scale generated extraordinary quantities of rock and spoil; the rock from the Gotthard tunnels alone would have filled a train of wagons stretching from Zurich to Chicago -- a distance of 4,440 miles. 1882 – OPENING OF THE GOTTHARD RAILWAY The 15 kilometre summit tunnel on the Gotthard railway was the longest tunnel in the world. Deep within the tunnels, two cavernous "multi-function stations" at Sedrun and Faido allow trains to cross between the two tunnels while maintenance is taking place or in case of emergencies. The opening ceremony of the Gotthard Base Tunnel in Switzerland featured a “goat-man” that dies, is resurrected, is worshipped and is crowned as “the king of the world”. "The Gotthard Base Tunnel cuts 40 minutes from the journey between Zurich or Basel and Milan, ensuring rail remains the mode of choice between Zurich and Italy," Mark Smith, a rail travel expert better known as "The Man in Seat 61," told CNN earlier this year. Join us on a 12-month journey to see them all, 25 amazing feats of engineering around the world. Features. Attended by Europe’s most powerful people, the opening ceremony of the Gotthard Base Tunnel in Switzerland was a dark, disturbing, weirdly satanic ritual. Trump's hour-long phone call fact-checked. Compared to the figures for the Gotthard or Lötschberg (34.6km), the Monte Ceneri seems like small fry. The opening ceremony of the Gotthard Base Tunnel in Switzerland featured a "goat-man" that dies, is resurrected, is worshipped and is crowned as "the king of the world." Thousands of feet beneath the Swiss Alps, a massive engineering project years in the making is reaching its final stages after a huge new tunnel was opened. Secondly was the Simplon Tunnel measuring 19.8 kilometres (12.3 miles) which was completed in 1905. Remarkably, by avoiding the famous spirals of the old mountain route, the GBT shortens the distance between Zurich and Milan by 25 miles. People travelling through the Gotthard tunnel when it opens on Sunday to scheduled passenger traffic can thank direct democracy. Gentler gradients now allow heavier freight trains to run unassisted through Switzerland and increase capacity from the old limit of 140-180 trains per day via the mountain route to 220-260 daily. Construction projects of this magnitude are not without their critics or difficulties, though. Photo gallery Gotthard Base Tunnel See Gallery Whatever the arguments for and against these mega-projects, the move towards more environmentally friendly forms of transport combined with the ever-present demands for increased efficiency and lower costs ensure that this new generation of tunnels under Alps will play a major role in the development of Europe's economy and travel industry over the coming decades. Close. > How do you explain the Gotthard Tunnel opening to people who think it was satanic? Features. With cross passages between the main tunnels every 1,066 feet, access tunnels and shafts the total length of the tunnel system is more than 95 miles. South of Vienna, the oldest and most celebrated railway across the Alps is also being bypassed. The mammoth multi-billion-franc project to complete the 57-kilometre connection, bored beneath the Alps, is set to be operational on December 11th 2016, SBB officials said at a press conference at Erstfeld in the canton of Uri. When other projects are completed, including on the Italian side, this time will drop to 3 hours – that’s 40 minutes less than what it is now. On the 1st of June 2016, after years of planning and many decisions, the time has finally come: the opening ceremony of the Gotthard Base Tunnel in the heart of the Swiss Alps! If you were to add up the distance covered by all the longest railway tunnels in the country, it would be enough to travel underground across almost the entire national territory from Chiasso to Basel – several hundred kilometres. The original Gotthard Tunnel was first, opening in 1882 and measuring 15 kilometres (9.3 miles) in length. Measuring over 57 km and costing over 11 billion Euros, the Gotthard Base Tunnel is world’s longest and most expensive tunneling project in … The opening of the Gotthard Base Tunnel therefore not only marks the inauguration of the world’s longest railway tunnel, but also a feat of engineering on a global scale that brings Europe closer together. Since the 13th century, the 2,106-metre-high (6,909 ft) Gotthard Pass has been an important trade route from northern to southern Europe. But two decades ago, its 15.4km would have put it in the world’s top 10 by length. It is built as one double-track, standard gauge tunnel. In particular, the 56km Gotthard base tunnel, inaugurated with great pomp in 2016, continues to enjoy the title of world’s longest – a title it will hold onto for at least another decade, until the Brenner tunnel links Italy and Austria. 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