
New Gotthard tunnel garners worldwide admiration - chkuendig
http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/railway-under-the-alps_new-gotthard-tunnel-garners-worldwide-admiration/41463332
======
mapt
Hits on a pet idea of mine:

We have a major issue with rail transportation in the US. It's most useful in
cities in a grade-separated form, but it's simultaneously the hardest to build
in cities in a grade-separated form. The number of existing pipelines, power
lines, traffic reroutes, building permits, and private property consents
required to check out grows to dizzying levels of complexity.

One way to bypass this is to dig deep, _deep_ tunnels. Tunnels far enough down
that surface settling doesn't occur, tunnels far enough down to bypass
skyscraper pilings. To do this well, though, you need to construct as much of
each station as possible in the tube itself, and only sink shafts down to that
level, not whole horizontal rooms.

You can do that with a ~20m diameter TBM. You buy this monster of a machine
for an exorbitant amount of money, and in exchange you get to leave the walls
that it constructs in place, except for some vertical elevators and a vertical
stairwell directly to the platform; No blasting, no extensive bit-by-bit
excavation, no surface trenches, no access tunnels, no adjusting to separate
mud and soil and rock. Just two tracks in a big tube with a bunch of space in
between them, and maybe a second level for another pair with an express line.

~~~
CPLX
Of note, the further below the surface train stations are, the more
inefficient they are, especially for daily use and commuting type lines. It
takes time to get that far down in the ground from the street level. It's less
of an issue for long haul transit of course, but in that case there's few
stations and they can be big downtown stations anyways.

As someone who grew up in Washington DC and moved to NYC, it was immediately
and obviously noticeable. The ability to just hop down a few stairs and jump
on a train is a _major_ improvement to convenience. The multiple levels,
elevators or long, long escalators, and so on, can double or triple the amount
of minutes it takes to go 3-4 stops.

~~~
mapt
We have available to us high-speed, high-capacity elevators now, standard in
large buildings. The DC Metro's escalators were a lot of things, among them
great big monumental architectural Statements; But as you and anyone else from
the area knows, they were not particularly well thought-out (and we are still
paying for that mistake in maintenance problems, wait times, expensive rain
shelters, et cetera).

Their progenitor, as I recall, went to the great lengths of riding them aboard
a wheelchair every day in a pained attempt to prove to the planning committee
that elevators, which would have spoiled his precious vaulted look, were not
necessary.

~~~
dredmorbius
Elevators and the numbers of bodies you need to move with mass transit really
aren't amenable.

A ten-car train in an urban commuter rail system might have 40-80 passengers
per car. That's up to 800 people deboarding (say, for a downtown terminal
station), though generally you're looking at a low few hundred.

Dumping that demand onto 3-4 escalators is doable, and the streaming is
continuous. For elevators, I don't see it working. Too many people and
elevators don't operate continuously as escalators do.

Unless there've been tremendous advances I'm unaware of.

Schindler's high-capacity elevators are rated for 6-21 people. It would take
38 elevator trips to empty the train I described above (divide among multiple
shafts and/or car trips as you like, but realize that speed is 1-1.6 m/s
(about 3.6 mph), or just over 60s to travel 100m, plus return and dwell time.
If train service intervals were ten minutes, you'd need ten shafts assuming 3
minutes per round-trip to clear 800 passengers.

[http://www.schindler.com/content/pl/Internet/pl/modernizacja...](http://www.schindler.com/content/pl/Internet/pl/modernizacja/_jcr_content/rightPar/downloadlist/downloadList/80_1351088438162.download.asset.80_1351088438162/SCHINDLER%205400%20\(eng\).pdf)

~~~
kazinator
> _[E]levators don 't operate continuously as escalators do. [...] Unless
> there've been tremendous advances I'm unaware of._

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paternoster](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paternoster)

:)

~~~
GFischer
Very interesting... if Hitachi did go past the prototype stage, it could
indeed be the answer...

Video from the link (in Japanese):

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j7YIBWve0n4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j7YIBWve0n4)

~~~
jacquesm
Paternosters have been used in the past but usually were discontinued because
of (gruesome) accidents. There were a couple in Amsterdam in my childhood.

~~~
GFischer
Yes, the old versions (where there were periods in which someone could fall
into a shaft) look dangerous.

The Hitachi version is interesting because it incorporates the behaviour one
expects from standard elevators, at the cost of some speed.

It sounds ideal for a mass transit station, and it could use the same pattern
as is currently used for subways (a small time it remains motionless, then the
doors close after a beep).

I found an English version of their video

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mnX5WZhvzZY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mnX5WZhvzZY)

and ThysenKrupp is also working on a similar idea:

[http://rt.com/news/210143-maglev-horizontal-elevator-
thyssen...](http://rt.com/news/210143-maglev-horizontal-elevator-
thyssenkrupp/)

Though Hitachi has decided to focus on speed instead:

[http://www.smithsonianmag.com/ist/?next=/smart-
news/worlds-f...](http://www.smithsonianmag.com/ist/?next=/smart-news/worlds-
fastest-elevator-will-be-built-china-180951203/)

I hope the innovation in this space doesn't dry out :)

~~~
dredmorbius
Falling into shafts is bad. Getting stuck between car and floor strikes me as
rather worse.

I'm familiar with a few such incidents (friends were witnesses, I,
fortunately, was not), with conventional elevators, overloaded. The screaming,
and then lack, is apparently something not easily forgotten.

------
jsingleton
Looks pretty impressive and to think some people say tunnelling is boring! It
is and it isn't. :)

In other news, Crossrail finished tunnelling today. Not as long as this but
still a big project.

[http://www.crossrail.co.uk/news/articles/prime-minister-
and-...](http://www.crossrail.co.uk/news/articles/prime-minister-and-mayor-of-
london-celebrate-completion-of-crossrails-tunnelling-marathon)

~~~
msandford
Haha, tunneling IS boring! Pun attempted, pun achieved.

~~~
jsingleton
That was the (intended) joke. Hard to get across in writing. The boring work
is over now!

------
georgeglue1
What a strange article. Is there a translation or cultural context? The part
about the Japanese "los[ing] face" or the reference to Russian civic culture
are two of many puzzling bits.

~~~
ngoldbaum
Swiss culture is still very insular. As an example of language and imagery
that would be seen as quite racist in the US or the rest of Europe, take a
look at this poster from the SVP/UDC party, currently the strongest party in
the Swiss federal parliament:
[http://www.20min.ch/schweiz/news/story/22226627](http://www.20min.ch/schweiz/news/story/22226627)

The slogan means "no special rights for foreigners", in protest of a practice
that allows foreign residents in switzerland to sign petitions to open up a
non-binding resolution in local city councils.

I don't think I've seen such baldly racist imagery from a US political party
in my lifetime - it looks like WW2 propoganda.

~~~
enjoy-your-stay
Well, when over 20% of residents in Switzerland at any time are foreign born,
you can kind of understand why some of them might feel that somebody needs to
fight for their corner.

~~~
ngoldbaum
I tried to be careful to only condemn the racist imagery. I don't know enough
about Swiss politics to comment on this particular debate.

------
gadders
Meanwhile in London:

Crossrail tunnel already smells of urine

[http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/society/crossrail-
tunnel-...](http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/society/crossrail-tunnel-
already-smells-of-piss-2015060498925)

~~~
jsingleton
If you ever wondered where the smell on the DLR at bank comes from.

[http://www.ianvisits.co.uk/blog/2014/02/02/how-a-tube-
statio...](http://www.ianvisits.co.uk/blog/2014/02/02/how-a-tube-station-gets-
its-fresh-air-though-an-old-mens-toilet/)

~~~
gadders
Ha.

They've recently created some new shops at Canary Wharf Tube, and there is now
a fancy Neal's Yard shop right where the Gents toilets used to be.

------
Animats
It's a great project, but that article is a bit deceptive. The breakthrough
video is from 2010. Official opening is a year away. The tunnels are finished,
with track, power, and signaling almost ready.[1] But the connections to the
railway system at both ends aren't ready yet.

As tunnel projects go, it was a long drive, but not an unusually difficult
one. Mostly hard rock, some water problems, but not too much water. Many
tunneling projects are more about keeping the water out and the roof supported
than digging.

Surprisingly, it was just a 4 TBM job, two tubes cut entirely from the ends.
Although there are several vertical shafts down to emergency stations, those
were not used as TBM starting points. Each TBM had to grind forward for almost
14 years.

[1] [https://www.alptransit.ch/en/status-of-the-work/railway-
infr...](https://www.alptransit.ch/en/status-of-the-work/railway-
infrastructure/)

------
noipv4
I see a countdown timer at the Bellinzona station. Edit. I think the first
(regular PASSENGER) train's going to run through the tunnel sometime in Dec
2016.

~~~
chkuendig
First passenger train (filled with VIPs) is gonna be 2nd of June 2016, first
passenger train on a regular schedule is sometime on Dec 11.

------
jonah
"...the Gotthard base tunnel 'broke all the rules' and the excavation was
finished nearly a year ahead of schedule."

I'd like to know more about this.

~~~
thallian
In a report from 2006[1] they prognosed a start of normal operations in 2017
with a delay of up to four years but also the possibility of finishing early
by one year.

In 2012 they seemed confident to open in 2016, but I can't really find the
reasoning for that. As far as I can see there were also cost considerations
playing a part in the decision.

Edit: apparently a very difficult Dolostone section was less proplematic than
anticipated (again, couldn't find an english source for this)

[1] (in three languages but no english, sorry):
[http://www.parlament.ch/r/mm/2007/Paginas/mm_2007-04-27_9519...](http://www.parlament.ch/r/mm/2007/Paginas/mm_2007-04-27_95197_01.aspx)

------
aselzer
If they include the Koralm Tunnel on the list, which is under construction,
they could as well add the Brenner Basis Tunnel
([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brenner_Base_Tunnel](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brenner_Base_Tunnel))
:)

When completed, it will be the world's second largest tunnel, only shorter
than this one.

------
ZeroGravitas
Is the water they talk about naturally warm? Is it because it's deep within
the earth that it is heated compared with surface water?

~~~
comrade1
They heat a tropical greenhouse and sturgeon farm with water from another
tunnel:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tropenhaus_Frutigen](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tropenhaus_Frutigen)

They weren't able to dump the water directly into the local river because it
would disrupt the native trout, and so they cool it with the greenhouse and
farm.

If I remember right the greenhouse and farm were businesses started by the
engineers that were on the tunnel project.

The caviar is nice - not as much minerality as normal, but still good texture
and taste.

------
smithkl42
Meanwhile, Seattle can't figure out how to dig their tunnel more than a couple
hundred yards without everything breaking down.

~~~
TylerE
Tunneling is generally a bit simpler well above sea level - the main enemy
isn't ROCK, but water, and keeping things dry.

~~~
wsc981
It's also proven to be a challenge in Amsterdam [0]. In The Netherlands (the
North-South Line) due to the 'soft' (marsh-like) ground.

\---

[0]: [http://www.dutchamsterdam.nl/691-amsterdam-north-south-
metro](http://www.dutchamsterdam.nl/691-amsterdam-north-south-metro)

------
ape4
It _is_ admirable.

