THE GOTTHARD ALPTRANSIT TUNNEL

摘要

The concept of building the Gotthard base tunnel is not new. It was first proposed as early as 1947. Now over 50 years after the first major proposal for the site in 1962, the world's longest railway tunnel has a final design and is under construction. The new Gotthard rail tunnel is the most ambitious of the Alptransit projects with a length of 57km between Erstfeld and Bodio, as well as requiring an 800m deep subvertical shaft at Sedrun in the middle of the alignment in order to excavate the central section of the tunnel. The study group for the Gotthard tunnel of the Swiss Federal Department of the Interior produced the first project plan in 1962 for a base tunnel through the Gotthard region. The project comprised a single tube tunnel, connected through two intermediate headings, on a straight line between Amsteg and Giornico. The routing was 47km long with a passing track facility in the central section of the tunnel. The intention was for trains to travel through at maximum speed of up to 200km/h, which was not far from that of present day trains.