Physical breakthrough on the deep Gotthard base Tunnel in the Swiss Alps on 15 October completes the basic excavation work for the world’s longest tunnel. There is much more to do yet before even the civils work is finished and a five-year programme of rail, signalling, power and communications systems installation has only just begun, with train service not available until 2017.
However, a high summit, as it were, has been reached in this giant Alpine project. As the last cubic metre of spoil was removed, it completed far more than just a world record length twin bore tunnel, it began a whole new generation of tunnel projects.
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A 57km length is an immense achievement, yet the even greater significance of Gotthard is that it also represents a breakthrough into tunnel building on an unprecedented scale and facing a new level of technological challenges. This is the first of many deep, very long mountain bores that are set for the 21st century, for rail, road and water projects, in the Alps, in the Andes, in the Chinese mountains, in the Rockies and eventually perhaps in the high Himalayas too.
The CHF 10bn (USD 10bn) Gotthard base tunnel is the second phase of Switzerland’s Alp Transit project, creating new high-speed railway links from north to south through the great Alpine mountain range. The first section was the already finished 34.6km long Lotschberg base tunnel to the west, which also faced some of the new challenges.
The Gotthard tunnel’s length is nearly twice that and the scale of the project is much greater, even more so when considered as the complete Gotthard axis. The total length of all tunnels and shafts for the base tunnel is 152km and, as well as the main base tunnel, there are several other tunnels on the route between Zurich and Lugarno. The largest is the 15.6km long Ceneri tunnel to the south, now also under construction.
The challenges that had to be overcome to get to the breakthrough have been huge.
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By GlobalDataGeological and other physical obstacles go substantially beyond earlier tunnels, demanding the application of logistical and technical methods that have not been used before, especially on any large scale. Surveying technique had to be applied at unprecedented levels of accuracy. In remote deep underground points and under conditions seen only in deep mines; crumbling, squeezing ground was fought with new technology derived from the German coal industry. High rock temperatures 2,300m below the surface meant battling with complex cooling and ventilation systems; the organisation of supply and manpower to workfaces more than 30km inside the mountains demanded sophisticated computer-controlled rail and conveyor systems; spoil removal and environmental protection needed their own organisation and control. Even the working relations and organisation of a project on this scale were unknown in Switzerland, with contracts lasting not just two to three years but more than a decade.
All of these challenges and risks were part of the huge debate within Switzerland that made up another layer of political, economic and social obstacles to be overcome when the project was first proposed. There were environmental and local community objections that led to delays.
The current Gotthard CEO, Renzo Simoni, says that the battle for his predecessor, Peter Zbinden, who retired in 2007, was as much about overcoming these obstacles and of keeping the project going despite cost increases and delays, as it was about the technical questions.
His own task is no longer one of making sure that the project happens at all, but of bringing it in on time, within the quality and budget targets set, for both Gotthard and the Ceneri tunnels. Much of the attention will be focused now on finishing works and the highly complex five-year fit-out with state-of-the-art rail and signalling technology.
The story of how the Swiss designers and international construction consortiums have met and dealt with these issues to date and the challenges to come are detailed on the following pages.
From left: Peter Zuber, Renzo Simoni and Peter Zbinden
