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"... 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.
Without public money even...
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.
"Nine workers died during the work." Although on-time or early and within budget, it is still a dangerous job to do. That is 0.346% of the total workforce (2600).
0.346% of the population over 17 years. Wouldn't be surprised if it was less than the national average death rate
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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?
But never any plan, never any specification, never anything except maybe a lonely Powerpoint presentation promising castles in the sky. Process? No process, that takes too long. And if there anything resembling a process, it's never formally documented, never enforced, and as soon as the next crisis breaks out, purposely disregarded. "Capability maturity model? Yeah, no, we obviously have no time for that..."
It's been both frustrating and fascinating watching it all these years: always panic, always guerilla style work mode, always no plan whatsoever, always pandemonium, always chaos. Completely the opposite of the Swiss or the Japanese. Different companies, different people, but with the English always the same modus operandi. And then they say that stereotypes are bad and not true at all. I guess at least I appreciate that they are consistent in being chaotic and disorganized (;-))
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Thanks for the comment. BTW Make sure to open the video in Chrome or Opera, the 360 thing does not work in Firefox
FWIW, it works for me in Firefox on Windows 10. Click and drag with the mouse, clicking on the arrows, or swiping on a touchscreen all work fine.
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.
(Saying this as someone from a region that would have had an immense benefit of the Porta Alpina station)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
It seems a bit harsh to me to call this "incredibly disrespectful". I doubt that "incredible disrespect" was intended, nor is it inherent to the statement. What I think you mean is that the grandparent comment strikes you personally as not recognising the efforts of other engineers around the world, and you wish it did. I think that would be a less incendiary and aggressive way to get your point across, and, in most…
Disrespect occurs with or without intent. The original poster's comment can only be construed in one way: the Swiss do things this way, it is better, and therefore everybody else does it wrong. The claim (50% spent on planning) is clearly and demonstrably wrong. As someone who works in the tunneling industry I take personal offense to the implication that we (Americans, British, Spanish, Italian, Chinese, everyone not Swiss) don't "invest the time up-front in planning and thinking" before we "set the machinery in motion" and that we have a work methodology that isn't "oriented towards reaping long term profits with interest".
"... 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.
Only in Europe maybe. The Millau Viaduct ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millau_Viaduct ) was also on time and on budget, despite needing a few groundbreaking advances... Without public money even...
This is $12.5b and 17 years for a 35 mile tunnel through solid rock. Seattle's transit plan is $50b, 25 years, and laying tracks on grade. Probably about the same number of miles. http://seattletransitblog.com/2016/03/24/st3-draft-plan-over...
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…
Any chance that you are living near https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drammen_Spiral ?
I would have dismissed your claim as totally absurd had I not read about this gem of an improbable building project before!
"... 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.