scienceillustrated.com.au | 57The construction of the St.
Gotthard Base Tunnel is one of
history’s major engineering jobs. After
more than 17 years of work, the tunnel
is opened to traffic.COOPER.CH2016
to stand up for himself time and time again,
as the limited liability company was
impatiently waiting for its completion.
The conflicts with the company clearly
weighed heavily on the selfmade engineer,
and on 19 July 1879, he was overtaken by his
fate. He was inspecting the tunnel together
with a visiting French engineer, when he
suddenly collapsed and died of a stroke.
In spite of all the construction problems,
Favre was a well-respected man, so his death
came as a shock, and he gained hero status
in all of Switzerland. “He died an honourable
death, like a soldier in the battle field,” it was
said about Favre.
One of his employees, an engineer by the
name of Bossi, took over Favre's position, and
on 29 February 1880, when the two work
teams met deep inside the mountain, a photo
of Louis Favre was the first object to be
passed through the hole.
The breakthrough attracted attention
throughout Europe, and it was a triumph for
the engineers responsible for the complex
measuring work. The two teams met each
other with remarkable accuracy.
The horizontal and vertical differences
between the two tunnels were only 33 and 5
cm, respectively, and an major party was
thrown to celebrate the breakthrough.
The next year, the project was so close to
completion that the first work trains began to
pass through the tunnel, and on 24 May
1882, the tunnel was ready. Decorated trains
carried guests into the tunnel, grandiose
parties and dinners took place in the two Alp
villages, and shortly afterwards, the short cut
through the Alps became a part of the
European railway network. Every day, steam-
powered trains passed through the world’s
longest tunnel, which was not only two years
delayed, but became about 1.5 times more
expensive than estimated.
THE LINK WAS A HUGE SUCCESS
At first, only a few trains a day passed
through the tunnel, but the activities grew
steadily. Tourists from all over Europe flocked
to the area to experience the huge
engineering feat they had read about in
European magazines. And people were not
disappointed, as apart from the long tunnel,
the new railway link consisted of 79 smaller
tunnels and 324 bridges – one more
spectacular than the other. On both sides of
the Alps, the train engines climbed steadily,
allowing them to approach the jagged peaks
without the ascent being too steep.
The St. Gotthard tunnel also literally
became a breakthrough for freight traffic.
Now, goods could be sent quickly and
conveniently from Northern to Southern
Europe, and from Italy it was fairly easy to
reach the newly-inaugurated Suez Canal in
Egypt per ship, continuing into the Indian
Ocean. The Europeans felt that the world
had opened up, and the tunnel made
distances shorter.FAVRE’S TRIUMPH IS STILL OPEN
The growing traffic soon made it necessary
to build double tracks to the tunnel; a project
which had been postponed for financial
reasons in the first place. Moreover, the Swiss
Railways, which took over the link in 1908,
decided to electrify it, and hydropower plants
generated power for the powerful engines on
the stretch, which had become a national
source of pride.
In 1980, a road tunnel through the St.
Gotthard Massif opened. Until then, special
freight trains had carried some 500,000 cars
a year through the old tunnel, which still
remains open to rail traffic between
Switzerland and Italy.(^1920)
The railway stretch
is electrified.
(^1980)
The St. Gotthard road
tunnel is inaugurated.