«Gotthard. Off through the Mountain» 16 April 2016 2 October 2016 Tour of the exhibition INTRODUCTION The three Gotthard tunnels have shaped Switzerland as no other construction project has done before. They are the work of politicians and engineers with a vision who transformed an obscure mountain pass into the most significant transit axis linking Europe s north and south. At the time of their construction, the rail tunnel (1872 1882) and the road tunnel (1970 1980) were the longest tunnels in the world. When the new Gotthard Base Tunnel between Erstfeld and Bodio, measuring fifty-seven kilometres in length, opens in June 2016 it will again set a new world record. However, the Gotthard is more than just a technical masterpiece; it has contributed significantly to the country s political and economic development. The exhibition shows how the tunnels were built and what impact they have had on the country and its people over the course of the years. RAIL, ROAD AND BASE TUNNELS In the mid-nineteenth century, Switzerland had no rail connection with the south. To avoid being cut off from the growing European rail network, eight cantons got together at the Gotthard Conference in 1853 and decided to build a railway line through the Gotthard massif. In 1882, after ten years of construction, the tunnel was opened, making the Gotthard railway one of the most important transit lines in Europe. In the 1950s the economic recovery and the growing volume of traffic led to the development of the Swiss federal road network. The southern part of the country was incorporated when the road tunnel through the Gotthard was opened in 1980 the second tunnel through the great massif. Owing to ecological considerations the plan now is to get the bulk of the European carriage of goods off the road and onto the rails. The Gotthard Railway Base Tunnel, built between 1999 and 2016, represents the realization of a vision that reaches back to the 1940s. The project is the penultimate chapter in the story of the Gotthard as part of the history of European traffic development. OVERCOMING HEIGHT Steep gradients and narrow valleys characterize the topography of the Gotthard massif. In the nineteenth century adventurous plans for overcoming height were developed and although none of the ideas were ever realized, they bear witness to the engineers spirit of technical ingenuity. In 1947 only Eduard Gruner developed the concept of a tunnel that followed the course of the main valley, an idea that was, at least in parts, realized seventy years later in the shape of the Base Tunnel. Visionary suggestions were also developed as regards the modes of transport. Gruner, for example, proposed a two-tier tunnel combining road and rail traffic or, alternatively, double-decker car shuttle trains.
SURVEYING THE MOUNTAIN Accurate survey work is a prerequisite for tunnel construction, route planning as well as cost calculation. The first surveys of the Gotthard massif date back to the eighteenth century, culminating in the famous Dufour Map, the series of topographic maps of Switzerland published between 1845 and 1865 and named after officer and engineer Guillaume-Henri Dufour. It was the first time that the Gotthard massif had been surveyed precisely, both in terms of height and expanse. Although the Dufour Map was the most accurate of its kind at the time, the building of the Gotthard railway line required additional survey work. This task was carried out by the German engineers Otto Gelpke and Carl Coppe independently of each other in 1869 and 1872, respectively. SURVEYOR S CHAIN Despite the simplicity of their technical equipment, Gelpke and Coppe s surveys were astonishingly accurate. The two tunnel drives, one from the north, the other from the south, deviated merely by thirty-three centimetres laterally and five centimetres vertically upon meeting. DISCUSSIONS Adventurous infrastructure projects as, for instance, tunnels through the Gotthard massif tend to trigger political debates. Since the founding of modern Switzerland in 1848, the Swiss electorate has voted more than twenty times on transport bills concerning the Gotthard. In the mid-nineteenth century the discussions focussed on the ideal route for a north-south link. In the early twentieth century the debates turned to the question of nationalizing the Gotthard line, which, up to 1909, had operated as a private railway company. Since the opening of the road tunnel in the second half of the twentieth century, ecological concerns have dominated the debate, actually prompting the building of the Gotthard Base Tunnel. BUILDING AND FINANCING The monumental rail tunnel between Göschenen and Airolo was built by a company under private law and headed by two key figures: Louis Favre, an engineer and building contractor, and Alfred Escher, a politician and captain of industry and chairman of the Gotthard Railway Company. The construction of the Gotthard railway line between Immensee and Chiasso was for the most part privately financed. Swiss public institutions (federal government, cantons, cities) contributed merely ten per cent of the total costs of roughly 220 million francs. The road tunnel, built by the cantons Uri and Ticino, was financed to ninety per cent by the Swiss federal government. The construction was assigned to two consortia. For the construction of the base tunnel the company AlpTransit AG, a subsidiary of the Swiss Federal Railways (SBB), was founded. The company is accountable to the federal government as regards budget and deadlines. SCULPTURE OF ALFRED ESCHER Alfred Esacher (1819 1882). Despite his achievements he was forced to resign in 1878 before the opening of the tunnel because he failed to build the rail tunnel without having to resort to additional federal subsidies.
CONTRACT WITH LOUIS FAVRE Alfred Escher commissioned the Swiss engineer Louis Favre (1826 1879) to construct the rails tunnel. Although he lacked experience, Favre outdid his competitors by submitting the lowest ender and the fact that he was the only Swiss to bid. He died during a tunnel inspection, three years before the work was finished. TUNNEL DESIGN Tunnels, bridges and viaducts are functional buildings serving very specific purposes. In terms of design they range from standardized single buildings to complex architectural superstructures. Rail tunnels are characterized by the use of prefabricated standard components. The expressive entrances designed by the Ticino architect Rino Tami are the typical feature of the road tunnel s south side. As far as the new base tunnel is concerned, all visible interventions are subject to an overall concept. The infrastructure elements are embedded gently in the landscape, whilst the individual buildings stand out prominently. DEVELOPING THE TOOLS For the construction of the Gotthard rail tunnel, the builders relied on mechanical drills that had previously been used for the construction of the Mont Cenis Tunnel in 1871. In addition dynamite was used for blasting; this speeded up the work process noticeably. During the construction of the road tunnel milling machines were used to bore the ventilation shafts. This made blasting unnecessary and marked the first step towards a combined process of excavation and tunnel heading. The use of tunnel boring machines in the base tunnel has perfected the system: while they bore themselves through the mountain, they simultaneously provide the tunnel s shell. DANGERS UNDERGROUND Tunnel construction in the nineteenth century was dangerous work. The use of explosives and heavy equipment in confined space led to many accidents. Poor ventilation sapped the workers strength and, due to the heat underground, contagious diseases spread quickly. At least 199 men died during the construction. When building the road tunnel, technical improvements and better safety standards helped to reduce the number of deaths to eighteen. Thanks to modern cooling and ventilation systems and increased automation, the conditions at the base tunnel worksite improved markedly. Still, during the seventeen years of construction, eight tunnel workers died. INSTEAD, HUMAN BEINGS CAME When construction on the rail tunnel began, thousands of miners, bricklayers and handymen arrived at the Gotthard building site from northern Italy, many of them with family. Göschenen grew to become an independent municipality within three years. In Airolo, too, locals and labourers lived closely together. Due to technical advancement fewer workers were required for the construction of the road tunnel than for the rail tunnel. The foreign labourers came without their families and were accommodated in hostels provided by the contractors. The same holds true for the new base tunnel; the tunnel workers live on site, hardly visible to the local population.
FAMOUS SWISS TUNNEL ENGINEERS Ever since Pietro Morettini blasted the first tunnel in the Alps in 1707 the so-called Urnerloch tunnels have been built in Switzerland. Not least on account of the political motive to link up regions separated by high mountain ranges, Switzerland went on to build 1,300 tunnels, measuring a total length of 2,000 kilometres. Owing to this long tradition the Swiss have a reputation of being excellent tunnel builders, although the Switzerland unlike other countries such as Belgium and Austria never developed an own Swiss school of tunnel engineering. But thanks to the ETH Zurich Switzerland possesses an internationally renowned university to train tunnel engineers. Ernest von Stockalper (1838 1919) Engineer, railroad pioneer on the Simplon line, site engineer at the north tube of the Gotthard Tunnel, built the Zermatt and Montserrat (Spain) railways. Friedrich Hennings (1838 1922) Civil engineer; work on the railway line Zurich-Zug-Lucerne; in 1864 / 65 pre-studies for the Gotthard railway, worked on railway projects in Wurttemberg and Austria; 1879 1883, engineer for the Gotthard railway in the Faido section; 1898 1905 supervising engineer for the construction of the Albula railway line; 1903 1921 professor for Road and Railway Construction at the Polytechnic College (as of 1911 ETH); 1905 rail project Bever-Scuol. Eduard Locher (1840 1910) Co-owner of construction company Locher & Cie; builder of railway bridges and tunnels (1878 82 spiral tunnel Gurtnellen-Wassen, 1896 1906 Simplon tunnel), railway lines, tramlines as well as waterworks. Ferdinand Rothpletz (1872 1949) Civil engineer; 1898 1905 work on Simplon Tunnel; as of 1905 construction supervisor and engineer for the Weissenstein, Lötschberg, and Grenchenberg tunnels as well as for the second tube of the Simplon Tunnel; in 1918 founding of Rothpletz & Lienhard in Berne and redevelopment of the Hauenstein Base Tunnel. Charles Andreae (1874 1964) Civil engineer; 1907 1913 responsible for the section South of the Lötschberg railway; 1913 1918 supervising engineer for the construction of the Simplon Tunnel; in 1918 habilitation thesis and nomination as professor of Railway and Tunnel Technology at ETH Zurich. Giovanni Lombardi (* 1926) Civil engineer; in 1955 he opened his own engineering office; responsible for the Gotthard road tunnel and co-supervisor on the Gotthard Base Tunnel and the new AlpTransit projects; tunnel constructions in Switzerland and abroad, presently involved in planning the Mont-d Ambin Base Tunnel on the Lyon-Turin line and the Gibraltar Rail Tunnel between Spain and Morocco. Kalman Kovari (* 1937) Civil engineer; consultant for major construction projects in Switzerland and abroad, among others, planning of Metro-line Copacabana in Rio de Janeiro, of various underground lines in Munich, of Metropolitana Automatica di Torino and of the Freudenstein Tunnel for German Railways (DB). As of 1990, chairman of the panel of experts for the Gotthard and Lötschberg
base tunnels; as professor of Geotechnical Engineering he helped to make ETH Zurich one of the world s leading universities in the field of tunnel construction. CHANGING USAGE The three tunnel projects have changed the way we perceive and use the Gotthard massif. What for centuries used to be an almost insurmountable obstacle became a mass transit route within a few decades. Technical advancement introduced speed to the Gotthard and brought the north and south closer to each other. The more the Gotthard was used for traffic purposes, the less attractive it became for writers and artists, making way for streams of traffic, goods, and tourists, as well as for military usage. The first tourists arrived in 1830 when the stagecoach began operating across the Gotthard pass between Flüelen and Camerlata. The flow of travellers increased markedly when the railway line opened in 1882. When the Gotthard massif was turned into a military stronghold in the first half of the twentieth century, tourism declined again, and when the road tunnel was opened in 1980 the Gotthard once and for all became a transit route: today 24.3 million tons of goods, 4 million train passengers and 6 million cars pass through the mountain massif. THE LAST COACHMAN When Alfred Escher retired as chairman of the Nordostbahn in 1873, he received Rudolf Koller s painting Gotthardpost as a parting gift. By then it was already clear that Escher s railway would supersede the stagecoach, which had been in service since 1830. The painting represents the end of an era with an almost unreal dynamics. The railway brought a new sense of speed to the Gotthard. After the opening of the rail tunnel in 1882, the stagecoach continued to serve the stretch between Göschenen and Airolo until being replaced by a post bus in 1922. Koller s painting is one of the most frequently reproduced works of Swiss art. Apparently, Escher never really liked it. THE HEYDAY OF GOTTHARD RAIL TOURISM The Gotthard rail tourism reached its peak around 1900. Travelling on the Gotthard railway was hailed as experiencing one of the technical wonders of the world and as a journey to the heart of Switzerland. Every third foreign tourist took the train from Lucerne down to the Ticino. The First World War brought an end to international tourism, while the strong presence of the Swiss army made the Gotthard area unattractive to visitors. The opening of the new Gotthard Base Tunnel in 1916 shifts the old Gotthard line between Erstfeld and Biasca back into the focus of tourism as a possible railway heritage route of international significance. CROSSING THE GOTTHARD ON BICYCLE The car shuttle train service from 1924 onward and the opening of the road tunnel in 1980 made the old mountain pass road attractive for two-wheel traffic. Since then scores of cyclists as well as moped and motorbike riders have crossed the Gotthard Pass. A favourite stretch is the old cobblestone road on the southern side of the pass, called Tremola. Especially famous is the part where the road climbs three hundred metres over a distance of four kilometres with twenty-four hairpin bends. The Tour de Suisse is a frequent visitor to the Gotthard: up to now the peloton has crossed the Gotthard Pass thirty-seven times more often than any other mountain pass in the eighty-two-year history of the Tour.
GATEWAY TO THE SOUTH The opening of the road tunnel in 1980 dramatically increased the volume of traffic. In the first year in operation 2.9 million vehicles passed through the tunnel. The term iron avalanche is used to describe the miles of slow-moving, bumper-to-bumper traffic heading towards the Gotthard. On the south side the traffic used to flood the villages of the Leventina valley, at least until the motorway between Airolo and Bellinzona was finished in 1986. Today tourists mostly stay away from the main valleys north and south of the tunnel. Notwithstanding, the motorway and the thousands of cars and lorries not to mention the noise and the pollution have become the hallmark of these two landscapes. Major Tunnel Constructions Lenght Year Metro No. 3 of Guangzhou, China METRO 60 km 2010 Gotthard-Basetunnel, Switzerland TRAIN 57 km 2016 Seikan, Japan TRAIN 54 km 1988 Eurotunnel, France / UK TRAIN 50 km 1994 Serpuchowsko-Timirjasewskaja-Line Moscow, Russia METRO 41 km 2002 Lötschberg-Basetunnel, Switzerland TRAIN 34 km 2007 LÆrdalstunnel, Norway CAR 24 km 2000 Simplon-Tunnel, Switzerland TRAIN 20 km 1905/21 Vereina-Tunnel, Switzerland TRAIN 19 km 1999 Zhongnanshan-Tunnel, China CAR 18 km 2007 Gotthard-Motorwaytunnel, Switzerland CAR 17 km 1980 Fruka-Basetunnel, Switzerland TRAIN 15 km 1982 Mount-McDonald-Tunnel, Canada TRAIN 15 km 1988 Hex-River-Tunnel, South Africa TRAIN 14 km 1989 Lötschberg-Tunnel, Switzerland TRAIN 14 km 1913 Arlberg Motorwaytunnel, Austria CAR 14 km 1978 Mont-Centis-Tunnel, France-Italy TRAIN 14 km 1971 Seelisberg Motorwaytunnel, Switzerland CAR 9 km 1980 Schlossberg-Tunnel Baden, Switzerland TRAIN 90 m 1847 Urnerloch, Switzerland CAR 64 m 1708