Background
The route over the Gotthard Pass (or through its tunnels) is one of the most important passages through the Alps on the north-south axis. Traffic has increased more than tenfold since 1980 and the existing tunnels are at their capacity limits. A second (proposed) tunnel was to be constructed only if the volume of traffic rose above one million vehicles a year. In fact, the engineer Giovanni Lombardi, responsible for the construction of the road tunnel added, "one year after the inauguration, the tunnel was already seeing 2.5 million vehicles annually. But the promise was forgotten".
To provide a faster and flatter passage through the Swiss Alps, the GBT cuts through the Gotthard massif some 600 m (1,969 ft) below the older tunnel. On the current track, the Gotthardbahn, only trains up to 1,400 short tons (1,300 t; 1,300 long tons) when using two locomotives or up to 1,700 short tons (1,500 t; 1,500 long tons) with an additional bank engine at the end of the train are able to pass through the narrow mountain valleys and through spiral tunnels climbing up to the portals of the old tunnel at a height of 1,100 m (3,609 ft) above sea level.
When completed, standard freight trains of up to 4,000 short tons (3,600 t; 3,600 long tons) will be able to pass this natural barrier. Because of ever-increasing international truck traffic, the Swiss voted in February 1994 for a shift in transportation policy (Traffic Transfer Act, enacted in October 1999).
The goal of both the laws (and the goal of the GBT, which is one of the means by which the law will achieve its objective) is to transport trucks, trailers and freight containers to/from southern Germany and northern Italy by rail to relieve the overused roads (intermodal freight transport and so-called rolling highway where the entire truck is transported) and to meet the political requirement of shifting as much tonnage as possible from truck transport to train transport, as required by the 'Alpine Protection Act' of 1994.
Passenger trains will be able to travel up to 250 km/h (155.3 mph) through the GBT, reducing travel times for trans-Alpine train journeys by 50 minutes, and by one hour once the adjacent Zimmerberg and Ceneri Base Tunnels are completed.
Read more about this topic: Gotthard Base Tunnel
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