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World's longest and deepest rail tunnel to open in Switzerland

bbc.com

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Re: World's longest and deepest rail tunnel to open in Switzerland

#81

Post by Jgrubb »

abduhl wrote: post #78
Annatar wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is typical for Switzerland, and it is because for the Swiss, "planning is 50% of the work". They invest the time up-front in planning and thinking about how whatever it is they are doing is going to work, and once they either ran proof of concept tests or thought it through, they set the machinery in motion. There will even be a clearly documented process for modelling the process, and a process for getting the…

This is incredibly disrespectful to the professionals in other parts of the developed world who do infrastructure or construction related work. Every mega project (and most mid sized projects) invests significant money and time in planning and design and also has defined work flows/design processes. I'd be interested to see any breakdown of costs or schedule that show "planning" as being 50% of the the work.

By praising something you're implicitly insulting everything else?

Re: World's longest and deepest rail tunnel to open in Switzerland

#82

Post by tobltobs »

andy_ppp wrote: post #72

It seems as if Europe has most of the worlds great infrastructure projects going on right now, with this and Cross Rail. Is there anything of similar scale going on in the US, China or India? EDIT: Answering my own question... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_transport_megaprojects and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_megaprojects

The irony is that this tunnel is part of bigger project, a fast north to south rail connection from Germany to Italy. But Germany nor Italy made any progress until today. Just north of the border the high speed trains have to slow down to 60km/h for about half an hour, because this part of the railway track is still from the sixties. The same on the south in Italy. And it doesn't look like this will ever change. Those railway projects don't have enough prestige for politicians.

Re: World's longest and deepest rail tunnel to open in Switzerland

#83

Post by IshKebab »

tobltobs wrote: post #77
bjelkeman-again wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A much shorter tunnel, but with two new underground train stations, is being built under Stockholm, Sweden.[1] It is about 1/6 of the Swiss budget (about $2 billion). It will be completed on budget and slightly ahead of time this year.[2] So it can be done. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockholm_City_Line [2] in Swedish. http://framtidensinfrastruktur.se/artikel/snart-fardigbyggt-...

You can't compare those two projects.

Clearly you can... Let's see:

Underground?: Yes, Yes

Budget: $2bn, $12bn (or whatever)

On-time?: Yes, Yes

Is a tunnel?: No, Yes

...

Re: World's longest and deepest rail tunnel to open in Switzerland

#84

Post by ptaipale »

tobltobs wrote: post #79
ptaipale wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

However, building passenger transit in an urban area is a very different thing, even if a long underground tunnel is a challenge in itself. Mining through solid rock is not really that expensive these days. But when building metropolitan transit, arranging traffic around of an existing population is not easy, and building transit stations is an expensive business. Making a tunnel through solid, hard rock is in any ca…

> Mining through solid rock is not really that expensive these days. If there would have been only solid rock the swiss would have build this tunnel centuries ago. There was a lot of slippery rock in between.

Perhaps not centuries ago, but decades, yes.

Re: World's longest and deepest rail tunnel to open in Switzerland

#85

Post by piquadrat »

tajen wrote: post #66
piquadrat wrote: post #17

There's a great 360° video on Youtube that shows both the tunnel as well as the Gotthard massif through which the tunnel leads. It's in German, but the visuals are impressive on their own. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qDSCtXvL51o

OMG I just understood what you meant with 360! You can swipe to the direction you want, like in Quicktime VR, but animated! I didn't know Youtube made it possible! The video was just showing the rails, I thought it was boring until I understood the concept.

Make sure to open it on your mobile or tablet. You can pan around physically with your device, which makes it quite immersive (more so if you have a VR device, of course).

Re: World's longest and deepest rail tunnel to open in Switzerland

#86

Post by ucaetano »

Annatar wrote: post #73
elcapitan wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would be fun to see an "agile" tunnel project. "This rock is too solid to drill through with our machines!" – "Ok, for now let's just drill around it and make it an underground rollercoaster instead of a railway, we can get back to the original design later!"

Not in this case, as the train is specified to go at 250 km/h, which means that the tunnel had to be pretty straight, or else the train might derail at that speed.

Which would make it an even more fun roller coaster!

Re: World's longest and deepest rail tunnel to open in Switzerland

#87

Post by tobltobs »

IshKebab wrote: post #83
tobltobs wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't compare those two projects.

Clearly you can... Let's see: Underground?: Yes, Yes Budget: $2bn, $12bn (or whatever) On-time?: Yes, Yes Is a tunnel?: No, Yes ...

You could apply this checklist to a sewage system also.

Re: World's longest and deepest rail tunnel to open in Switzerland

#88

Post by sschueller »

piquadrat wrote: post #17

There's a great 360° video on Youtube that shows both the tunnel as well as the Gotthard massif through which the tunnel leads. It's in German, but the visuals are impressive on their own. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qDSCtXvL51o

I'm still hoping that they will build that underground train station eventually. Would be awesome.

Re: World's longest and deepest rail tunnel to open in Switzerland

#89

Post by jacquesm »

danieltillett wrote: post #67
jacquesm wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Radioactive decay is a component of geothermal heat, but it is not all of it, quite a large chunk of it is simply residual heat from time of the formation of the planet.

I am not sure how much residual heat is left after 4 billion years, but at the near surface all[1] the heat is due to radioactive decay. 1. Ok most :)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth%27s_internal_heat_budget

"The flow of heat from Earth's interior to the surface is estimated at 47 terawatts (TW) and comes from two main sources in roughly equal amounts: the radiogenic heat produced by the radioactive decay of isotopes in the mantle and crust, and the primordial heat left over from the formation of the Earth."

Re: World's longest and deepest rail tunnel to open in Switzerland

#90

Post by ucaetano »

tellarin wrote: post #3

"... longest and deepest rail tunnel ..." and "... delivered on time and within budget ..." Only in Switzerland, I guess. :) I wish there were better write ups of how the planning for this came together and what differs from other somewhat similar huge projects.

There's (usually) a very good separation between the political and technical aspects of the project.

You can take the Porta Alpina dise-project as an example (which wanted an underground station midway through the tunnel connecting to ski resorts).

Despite strong political lobbying, the project was deemed uneconomical and canceled.

If you compare it with the new span of the SF Bay Bridge, the difference is clear: there was far less political involvement in the technical details of the project in the Swiss case.

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