“With all the tunnels that pierce them, the Swiss Alps have often been likened to an enormous Swiss cheese. That comparison was awakened in recent months when a 22-mile rail tunnel was opened near this Alpine town.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/19/world/europe/19swiss.html
Dave
…More power and success to the Swiss…It’s great to see countries build {things}, that benefit their area in commerce and something that will make their system work better.
Wouldn’t it be great if most of the world could concentrate on construction instead of destruction. like some are doing.
The Lotschbeg Tunnel will only have double track for the first 6 miles or so in from the south portal. The remainder of the tunnel will have passing sidings for now; eventually it will be entirely double tracked.
The new Lotschberg Tunnel will replace the steep and curving approaches to both portals of the existing Lotschberg Tunnel which are scenic, when they are not in tunnels that is, with approaches that are flat and straight.
A couple of questions. Will passenger trans continue to run through the existing Lotschberg Tunnel once the new tunnel has opened? The north portal of the new Lotschberg Tunnel is in Frutigen which has along concrete arch bridge. Will the trains that run through the new Lotschberg Tunnel continue to cross the Frutigen Viaduct?
Some passenger-trains (inter-city and euro-city) will run through the new Lötschberg-tunnel, but there will be other passenger-trains using the old line. Same thing for part of the freight-trains.
The old line will remain in service. BTW, about 20 years or so it has been double-tracked, with taxpayer-money. Because the new tunnel is mostly single-track, trains that are runnig late - IIRC seven or nine minutes is the deadline - will be sent onto the old line in order not to delay opposing trains in the new tunnel.
…Can one imagine having that luxury of routes with the rail systems in this country. That would be counted redundant and abandoned.
Rudy, what Martin didn’t cover is that trains using the new Base tunnel do not use the bridges at Fruitigen, the junction is just north of the bridge.
Good evening Modelcar,
the Lötschberg-tunnel is one of the most important north-south-routes in Europe, a freight-mainline between Germany and Italy. This may explain in part why the old route will be maintained in servicable condition. The new Lötschberg-tunnel is more than 20 miles long (34,5 km) And the problem of the long single-track-section in the tunnel is Another reason is of course: if you close the old line, you have to explain to the public why so much taxpayer-money for double-tracking and for larger clearances has to be written off after a few decades.
The engineers wanted the Lötschberg-tunnel to have longer stretches of double-track. The federal government decided to drill the new tunnel in three stages because the new tunnels (Gotthard and Lötschberg) trough the alps costed much more than expected and they wanted to save money.
Capacity of the Lötschberg line will be 110 trains per day through the new tunnel and 66 on the old line. The old line will keep the car shuttle between Kandersteg and Goppenstein through the old Lötschberg-tunnel. The 110 trains on the new line will be passenger (30) and freight-trains (80). Passenger-trains will run at top-speed ot 125 (some 155) mph. Freight-trains at 50 to 60 mph. There will be extra-“heavy” and extra “long” freight trains with a tonnage of 4000 tons and a length of one mile.
…Martin: Very interesting. Thanks for that rundown on the tunnel’s operations.
It would be nice if our rail systems in this country were deemed to be that precise and important. I admit we don’t have a range like the Alps to traverse but the Rockies do make a formidable challenge and of course use several Passes to get across…along with some tunnels but nothing like the new Lotschberg tunnel.
Pushing a train thru a single track tube at up to 155 mph must present some challenges with air pressures and stability for the train.
Hallo Modelcar,
the highest peaks in the Rocky Mountains are in fact higher than the Alps. Highest mountain in Europe is Mont Blanc in France (road-tunnel where a terrible fire cause IIRC more than 30 victims some years ago). It is three miles high, a little bit less than the highest point of the Central Railroad of Peru, BTW! The problem in the Alps is topography that forces you to drill long and very costly tunnels, if you want to have a railroad across the Alps with easy grades (in the range of 1% or a little bit more). The old lines on Lötschberg and Gotthard have ruling grades of >2,5% in both directions (north and south) which cause a lot of operational problems. In fact, on the new Lötschberg-Simplon-line, northbound ruling grades will remain unchanged, because of the steep southern access to Simplon-tunnel. But this is a minor problem, because northbound trains tend to be lighter than the southbound ones.
…Hello Martin:
All sounds interesting and seems the Swiss are willing to spend the money to make the problem as liveable as possible.
Some years ago one of our transcons {western extension}, was abandoned and from what I’ve read it was one of the lowest graded crossings of the Rockies. But, it’s abandoned. Our Cascades tunnel across the Rocky Mtn. area is just short of 8 miles in length…Believe that’s the longest RR tunnel in the United States. Opened about 1929, if I remember correctly.
Anytime a main line can blaze a trail up and over {or thru}, a mountain and maintain a max of 1%, I’d believe they have a good route. I suppose tunnels though, can add quite an expense to maintain and safely operate.
Hello,
I wish that the north american governments would take the swiss as an example. This is the kind of thinking that is required over here to make the rail systems more viable and take a lot of traffic from the roads.
One can only wish.
Frank
…Yes, the rest of the world is figuring out how to do it, but we’re going to wait until our interstates are totally grid locked and then try to think what to do…