With the industrialisation of the world, this had caused problems in Switzerland.
In 1860, Swiss Industrialist Alfred Esher, thought a solution might be to bore a tunnel through the Swiss Alps and build a railway to move people and freight through the mountains. So began the building of the first Gotthard Tunnel which in 1882.
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| The first Gotthard Rail Tunnel built in 1882 |
Over the years, transit traffic between northern and southern Europe grew to an extent that gridlock in mountain villages was not uncommon. Something had to be done.
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| Blocked roads with foreign trucks was not uncommon |
Swiss citizen collected enough signatures to make the federal government hold a referendum to build a base tunnel through the Swiss alps and at the same time force foreign trucks onto the railway to be piggybacked through Switzerland and off the roads.
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| Yes and No campaigned vigorously to build a new tunnel and get foreign trucks off the roads. |
64% of voters approved the initiative and the government was forced to order a new, much longer rail tunnel at the base of the alps from north to south at a cost of 8.5 billion Australian dollars.
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| The final design of the new Gotthard Base Tunnel |
Work began in 1999 at 4 points tunnelling in all directions for 17 years until the new Gotthard Base tunnel was finally completed in 2016.
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| The Tunnel Boring Machines used |
This 57km new tunnel allows freight trains to travel at 240km/hr, more than double the previous speed through the first tunnel. Passenger trains even faster at 250km/hr.
My proposed talk will go into the history of how cross mountain travel started in the early 13th century with pack mules over the massive alps and ends today with the longest rail tunnel in the world, thus ending Switzerland's road gridlock. To end, we'll even take a cab ride through this engineering marvel.
