Work on the full reopening of the Gotthard Base Tunnel, the world’s longest railway tunnel at 57 kilometers, is still on track. As of today, August 19, 2024, trains are again running through the repaired western tube as part of the trial operation.
After the successful completion of test operations last week and with the corresponding approval from the Federal Office of Transport, a commercial train was able to travel through the repaired western tube of the Gotthard Base Tunnel for the first time today, August 19, 2024. It was the early morning train departing at 5.30 a.m. from Chiasso in the direction of Basel SBB. The second train was a freight train operated by SBB Cargo International from Ludwigshafen (Germany) to Gallarate (Italy).
With a view to the full reopening of the Gotthard Base Tunnel on September 2, 2024, SBB is conducting test and trial operations, similar to those carried out before the tunnel was put into operation in 2016. The test operation with measurement, test and service trains was successfully completed last week.
Before the full reopening of operations, SBB will carry out repeated cleaning operations. To ensure optimum interaction with the cleaning, the trains in the trial operation that started today, with the exception of the first train, will travel from north to south through the west tube of the Gotthard Base Tunnel.
Once it is fully operational again on September 2, 2024, all InterCity and EuroCity trains as well as all freight trains between German-speaking Switzerland and Ticino will again run through the Gotthard Base Tunnel. This means that passengers can travel from northern to southern Switzerland an hour faster, and for the first time, every half hour throughout the day.
The world’s longest railway tunnel, the Gotthard, with a total length of 57 km, was severely damaged after 23 wagons of a freight train derailed on 10 August 2023. Initially, the Swiss railway company had hoped that trains would resume running on 16 August, less than a week after the serious rail accident. However, this was not possible, as shown above, due to much greater damage than expected.
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