This is a major story in Europe; the Gotthard Base Tunnel has been closed by a derailment that happened on August 10, 2023. The tunnel is an incredible piece of infrastructure and a passenger as well as freight route. The accident is in the news now as the extent of the damage has been determined and what repairs will involve has become clearer.
To quote from the wikipedia link about the tunnel:
The GBT consists of a large complex with, at its core, two single-track tunnels connecting Erstfeld (Uri) with Bodio (Ticino) and passing below Sedrun (Grisons). It is part of the New Railway Link through the Alps (NRLA) project, which also includes the Ceneri Base Tunnel further south (opened on 3 September 2020) and the Lötschberg Base Tunnel on the other main north–south axis. It is referred to as a "base tunnel" since it bypasses most of the existing vertex line, the Gotthard railway line, a winding mountain route opened in 1882 across the Saint-Gotthard Massif, which was operating at its capacity before the opening of the GBT. The new base tunnel establishes a direct route usable by high-speed rail and heavy freight trains.[15]
The main purpose of the Gotthard Base Tunnel is to increase local transport capacity through the Alpine barrier, especially for freight on the Rotterdam–Basel–Genoa corridor, and more specifically to shift freight volumes from trucks to freight trains. This both significantly reduces the danger of fatal road crashes involving trucks, and reduces the environmental damage caused by heavy trucks. The tunnel also provides a faster connection between the canton of Ticino and the rest of Switzerland, as well as between northern and southern Europe, cutting the Basel/Zürich–Lugano–Milan journey time for passenger trains by one hour (and from Lucerne to Bellinzona by 45 minutes).[16]
From the BBC:
...SBB [the National Swiss Rail operator] said that in total, around 8km (4.9 miles) of track and 20,000 concrete sleepers needed to be replaced.
The rail operator added that one side of the tunnel was unaffected and should be operating "in principle" for freight usage from 23 August, but passenger trains would not be able to use the unaffected side due to safety reasons.
...The route cuts through the Alps and provides a high-speed link between northern and southern Europe.
As well as transporting passengers, Gotthard is a key passage for cargo - particularly between Germany and Italy.
More than two-thirds of rail freight traffic in the Alps rolled through the tunnel last year.
emphasis added
The train that derailed had been inspected before being allowed to enter the tunnel, so the accident cause was not something that would have been obvious beforehand.
...The Swiss Transportation Safety Investigation Board believes that a broken wheel caused the derailment. Wheel disc fragments indicate that the train carried on for a few miles with a broken wheel before ultimately derailing. The cars destroyed the tracks while scattering wine, lemonade and other goods along the tunnel.
In a statement, SBB has revealed how massive the repair project will be:
“Extensive investigations have revealed that the scale of the damage is considerably greater than initial assessments suggested. In total, around 8 kilometers of track and 20,000 concrete sleepers need to be replaced. The track bed is severely damaged in the area of the Faido cross-over. It will take several months to replace all the damaged components of the railway installations. SBB currently assumes that both tunnel tubes will be available for limited rail traffic at the beginning of 2024.”
While repairs are underway, there will be limited freight service through the tunnel. Passenger service is going to be diverted to an alternate route, adding 1-2 hours to the trip with a train change for most travelers.
Some observations
This would be unlikely to happen in the U.S. because:
- The private rail industry would not spend 17 years and an estimated $12 billion dollars on a project like this. (As per example something like this, or this.)
- The private rail industry has been funding climate denial; they’d resist building something like this over climate concerns.
- The private rail industry would not invest in high speed passenger rail or electrifying the rail lines; they don't like passenger service as it is.
- The private rail industry would not be spending time inspecting trains for safety beyond the legal minimum — and maybe not even then.
- The private rail industry — if they did have a tunnel like this — would probably be running slow trains several miles long through it, and the clean up after a derailment would be far more difficult as a result.
- There’s one major political party in the U.S. that would never use taxes to fund an investment like this to begin with, and definitely not to fight climate change, or hold the rail industry to account.
This is why we can’t have nice things — and why the Inflation Reduction Act could be the start of some real changes to turn that around.
Good luck to everyone working to clean this up, and odds are they’ll do everything they can to make it happen as quickly as possible.
