
Gotthard Base Tunnel - lelf
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gotthard_Base_Tunnel
======
miander
It looks like the trains through this tunnel will be all-electric. I wonder
why they went with a 15kV power system instead of a modern 25kV system?

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/15_kV_AC_railway_electrificati...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/15_kV_AC_railway_electrification)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/25_kV_AC_railway_electrificati...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/25_kV_AC_railway_electrification)

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hn9780470248775
Perhaps for compatibility with the rest of the Swiss rail network?

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miander
You're right. There don't appear to be any 25 kV rail systems in Switzerland.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_current_systems_for_el...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_current_systems_for_electric_rail_traction#15_kV_AC.2C_16.C2.A02.E2.81.843.C2.A0Hz_.2816.7_Hz.29)

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peterburkimsher
The software control SCADA system for the Gotthard Base Tunnel is called WinCC
OA, made by ETM Siemens. Full disclosure: I did a summer job for them in
Eisenstadt, Austria in 2012, and my dad uses the same software at CERN.

ETM made software called PVSS, and it was renamed to WinCC OA when ETM got
bought by Siemens. The previous Siemens software, WinCC, was the victim of the
Stuxnet worm. Hopefully ETM's is a bit more secure!

This is public knowledge, not insider information:
[http://www.etm.at/index_e.asp?sname=div_nw_0209_gbt_e.asp](http://www.etm.at/index_e.asp?sname=div_nw_0209_gbt_e.asp)

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scmoore
There's a (kind of cheesy) documentary about the construction of the tunnel:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QaTN_R1b00I](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QaTN_R1b00I)

I skipped through some of the slower-paced sections, and mostly just gawked at
the machinery.

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TrevorJ
Thanks for the link. Cheesy or no, I love these kinds of docs, wish there were
more of them out there.

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dgorges
Gotthard Tunnel

The Gotthard Base Tunnel (GBT) is a railway tunnel through the Alps in
Switzerland expected to open on 2 June 2016.

\- Length: 35.4 mi

\- Cost: $10.3 billion

\- Construction: 1996 - 2016 (est)

Bay Bridge

The San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge (known locally as the Bay Bridge) is a
complex of bridges spanning San Francisco Bay in California.

\- Length: 4.46 miles

\- Cost: $6.5 billion

\- Construction: 2002 - 2013 (est)

~~~
Swizec
How does average construction worker pay in Bay Area compare to
Germany/Switzerland?

~~~
trhway
while i'm sure the issue with the costs here and there isn't labor/salary,
googled out of curiosity - for welder in US it is $30-50K/year avg, in Germany
- the government mandated minimum in non-East Germany is something like
14euro/hour, in the East - 11 euro/hour.

I also would be very surprised if the Germany/Switzerland were "outsourcing"
the job to Chinese companies like the US does with big infrastructure
projects. I mean everybody who ever dealt with outsourcing up close knows what
in reality it is completely opposite to "cost savings", instead it is a way to
"digest" even more money than it would be otherwise.

~~~
abduhl
The minimum wage that can be paid for a tunnel hand in San Francisco is around
$34/hr plus overtime and benefits. See
[http://www.dir.ca.gov/oprl/pwd/Determinations/Northern/NC-02...](http://www.dir.ca.gov/oprl/pwd/Determinations/Northern/NC-023-102-11.pdf)

You have to remember that tunnel jobs are almost always run by a municipality
which means that they're almost always union. I would imagine it is similar in
Switzerland.

Tunneling is a niche industry and commands a high price.

~~~
masterleep
We don't know that, because the government is controlling the price.

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morsch
Another very long trans-alpine railway tunnel in construction 250 km to the
east:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brenner_Base_Tunnel](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brenner_Base_Tunnel)
It's nowhere near completion, though.

Length: 34 mi

Cost: $11.5 billion

Construction: 2007 - 2025 (est)

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DiabloD3
I remember when they started this project. This is seriously maybe the
greatest work of engineering on Earth.

Now only if the US can match this and finally get that bullet train network up
and running...

~~~
abduhl
Why is this "seriously maybe the greatest work of engineering on Earth"?

It looks like straight forward rock tunneling to me. The alps have good rock
that the industry has a lot of experience mining through. Don't get me wrong,
the length is impressive but the diameter (10m) is not crazy nor is the ground
bad.

~~~
SeoxyS
What makes this project incredible is how it is dug at the base of the
mountain, instead of higher up. That makes it the deepest tunnel, dug under
2,500m of rock at its max. When you have almost two miles of mountain weighing
down on you… pressure is intense. The rock has different compositions along
the way, some parts have to be dug with boring machines, some parts with
explosives.

The project has been in construction for 20 years. For comparison: the Golden
Gate Bridge took 4 years. The Hoover Dam, 5 years. The Burj Khalifa, 5 years.

~~~
abduhl
Two miles of mountain does not "weigh down on you". As I said earlier, the
alps are known to have very good rock. What this means is that it is,
essentially, self supporting. You are not designing for two miles of
overburden pressure, you are designing for maybe a couple diameter's worth of
overburden.

If you read my comment history you'll realize that I work in the tunneling
industry. I have designed, inspected, or helped construct large diameter hard
rock tunnels, small diameter soil tunnels, and everything in between.

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phantom784
Originally, there was going to be a station partway through the tunnel. It
would've been 800 meters underground - the deepest in the world. It was
scrapped as uneconomical.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Porta_Alpina](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Porta_Alpina)

~~~
Animats
The station was actually built, but only as an emergency facility and to help
with construction. It's reachable from the surface, but requires a horizontal
trip on a mine train and then 800m vertical on a mine hoist.

Stopping trains there interferes with traffic too much.

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legulere
> it will be the world's longest and deepest traffic tunnel

yet the linked list of the worlds longest tunnels lists two longer metro
tunnels in china

~~~
Someone
That list also mentions a _" Longest railway tunnel excluding urban metro
lines with intermediate stations"_, so I would guess it is in that category.

Makes some sense; a metro tunnel with stations every kilometer or so will not
feel like a single tunnel, even if it was engineered as one.

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thom_nic
TFA doesn't mention whether or how far the project is over budget or behind
its original schedule. Does that mean it is on schedule and on budget? If so
that's amazing.

I'm used to constantly hearing stories like the "Big Dig" here in the US,
sometimes it seems like every non-trivial civil works project fails massively
fail on both criteria.

~~~
piquadrat
Originally, the cost of the complete AlpTransit project (of which the Gotthard
is part of) was estimated to be about 14.5 billion Swiss Francs (CHF), in
1998. It ended up costing about 18.7 billion CHF, so quite a bit more. The
whole project changed quite a bit in the mean time, though (e.g. added
security and environmental measures).

source (in German): [https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neue_Eisenbahn-
Alpentransversa...](https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neue_Eisenbahn-
Alpentransversale#Gesamtkosten)

~~~
Swizec
That's only 30% over budget. Coming from a country where civil projects are
often used to "vanish" money, I am _very_ impressed.

Also coming from software engineering. 30% over budget is just impressive. I
would love to be capable of such accurate planning.

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tunafishman
Another awesomely engineered route to avoid the Teufelsbrücke.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teufelsbr%C3%BCcke](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teufelsbr%C3%BCcke)

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cozzyd
I've sometimes wondered if a Reno to somewhere in western Sierras base tunnel
would make sense in the US. Probably not nearly as much of a bottleneck to
justify.

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ohitsdom
I think self-driving vehicles will make projects like this even rarer. The two
benefits this project achieves are:

1\. Safer travel on rails instead of trucks (accidents & environmental)

2\. Faster transport between regions (saving 1 - 1.5 hrs)

Safety will become almost a non-concern with self driving cars. Work still
needs to be done to minimize environmental impact, but electric cars are
coming on strong.

Faster transport times will be a tougher sell when we are actually free to be
productive when traveling. With an automated driving system, vehicles become
offices/lounges.

Self driving cars don't completely address these concerns, but they make the
$10 billion price tag hard to justify. I'm not saying this project isn't
justified, I just love examining the impact self-operating vehicles will have
on our future.

~~~
syncsynchalt
Not so much in this particular case — the purpose of the tunnel is to reduce
heavy truck traffic through environmentally sensitive areas. The tunnel is
explicitly built to satisfy a goal of transforming truck freight to rail
freight. The fast passenger time is only listed as a side benefit.

~~~
abalone
Not to mention electric is not viable for long haul heavy trucking (for the
foreseeable future).

~~~
dredmorbius
It kind of depends on how you envison that.

With existing intermodal systems, there's already something _somewhat_
resembling electrified long-haul heavy trucking, though largely in Europe. For
various reasons, the US has little electrified freight, and doesn't forsee it
for the forseable future, though it's clearly technically feasible.

There are several other possibilities for electrified freight, though battery-
EV is almost certainly out of the picture. IIRC BMW have experimented with a
battery-powered EV tractor-trailer, but it's used exclusively for local
delivery at low speeds (~40 kph IIRC) at a range of ~5-10 km. A _very_ limited
pilot.

Self-driving cargo vehicles capable of "training" on highways, with catenary
or similar feeds, _could_ offer long-haul separable vehicle cargo capacity.
I'm not aware of any serious plans for such a system though, and it would
require both massive investment in vehicles and roadways.

Present planning at the US EIA is for _natural gas_ fueled cargo -- both truck
and rail.

