Lötschberg Base Tunnel - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The Lötschberg Base Tunnel (LBT) is a 34.57 kilometres (21.5 mi) railway tunnel

Tunnel

A tunnel is an underground passageway, completely enclosed except for openings for egress, commonly at each end.A tunnel may be for foot or vehicular road traffic, for rail traffic, or for a canal. Some tunnels are aqueducts to supply water for consumption or for hydroelectric stations or are sewers...

on the BLS Lötschbergbahn

Bern-Lötschberg-Simplon railway

The Bern-Lötschberg-Simplon railway, known since the merger of the "old" BLS with the Bern-Neuenburg-Bahn , the Gürbetal-Bern-Schwarzenburg-Bahn and the Simmentalbahn in 1997 as the BLS Lötschbergbahn, is a Swiss railway company. It is the largest standard gauge network on the Swiss Railway...

's Lötschberg Line cutting through the Alps

Swiss Alps

The Swiss Alps are the portion of the Alps mountain range that lies within Switzerland. Because of their central position within the entire Alpine range, they are also known as the Central Alps....

of Switzerland

Switzerland

Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....

some 400 m (1,312.3 ft) below the existing Lötschberg Tunnel

Lötschberg Tunnel

The Lötschberg Tunnel is a long railway tunnel on the Lötschberg Line, which connects Spiez and Brig at the northern end of the Simplon Tunnel cutting through the Alps of Switzerland. Its ends are at the towns of Kandersteg in the Canton of Berne and Goppenstein in the Canton of...

. It is currently the world's longest land tunnel and accommodates passenger and freight trains. It runs between Frutigen

Frutigen

Frutigen is a municipality in the Bernese Oberland in the canton of Bern in Switzerland. It is the capital of the Frutigen-Niedersimmental administrative district.-History:...

, Berne

Canton of Berne

The Canton of Bern is the second largest of the 26 Swiss cantons by both surface area and population. Located in west-central Switzerland, it borders the Canton of Jura and the Canton of Solothurn to the north. To the west lie the Canton of Neuchâtel, the Canton of Fribourg and Vaud. To the south...

, and Raron

Raron

Raron is a municipality in the district of Raron in the canton of Valais in Switzerland.-History:Raron is first mentioned around 1101-1200 as Rarogni...

, Valais

Valais

The Valais is one of the 26 cantons of Switzerland in the southwestern part of the country, around the valley of the Rhône from its headwaters to Lake Geneva, separating the Pennine Alps from the Bernese Alps. The canton is one of the drier parts of Switzerland in its central Rhône valley...

. Breakthrough was in April 2005 and construction ended in 2006. The opening ceremony was in June 2007. Full scale operation began in December 2007.

Project

Built to ease lorry

Lorry

-Transport:* Lorry or truck, a large motor vehicle* Lorry, or a Mine car in USA: an open gondola with a tipping trough* Lorry , a horse-drawn low-loading trolley-In fiction:...

traffic on Swiss roads, the LBT allows an increased number of lorries and trailers

Semi-trailer

A semi-trailer is a trailer without a front axle. A large proportion of its weight is supported by a road tractor, a detachable front axle assembly known as a dolly, or the tail of another trailer...

to be loaded onto trains in Germany

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

, pass through Switzerland on rail and be unloaded in Italy

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

. It also cuts down travel time for German tourists

Tourism

Tourism is travel for recreational, leisure or business purposes. The World Tourism Organization defines tourists as people "traveling to and staying in places outside their usual environment for not more than one consecutive year for leisure, business and other purposes".Tourism has become a...

going to Swiss ski resorts and puts the Valais

Valais

into commuting

Commuting

Commuting is regular travel between one's place of residence and place of work or full time study. It sometimes refers to any regular or often repeated traveling between locations when not work related.- History :...

distance to Bern by reducing travel time by 50%. The total cost was SFr

Swiss franc

The franc is the currency and legal tender of Switzerland and Liechtenstein; it is also legal tender in the Italian exclave Campione d'Italia. Although not formally legal tender in the German exclave Büsingen , it is in wide daily use there...

4.3 billion (as of 2007, corrected to 1998 prices). This and the Gotthard Base Tunnel

Gotthard Base Tunnel

The Gotthard Base Tunnel is a new railway tunnel beneath the Swiss Alps, expected to open in 2016. With a route length of and a total of of tunnels, shafts and passages, it is the world's longest rail tunnel, surpassing the Japanese Seikan Tunnel....

are parts of the Swiss AlpTransit

AlpTransit

AlpTransit, also known as New Railway Link through the Alps NRLA , is a Swiss federal project aimed to build faster north-south rail links across the Swiss Alps by constructing base tunnels several hundred metres below the level of the current tunnels...

initiative.

Construction and usage

Track construction in the LBT was completed in July 2006. Extensive testing then took place, including more than 1,000 test runs, which focused among other things on the use of the ETCS

European Train Control System

The European Train Control System is a signalling, control andtrain protection system designed to replace the many incompatible safety systems currently used by European railways, especially on high-speed lines.- History :...

Level 2 system. For the second half of 2007 (after opening), only regular freight used the LBT, plus some international and InterCity passenger trains (without stops between Spiez and Brig); however, passenger trains used the old timetable (the travel time between Spiez and Brig was considered to be 56 minutes until December 2007, even if actual travel time through the LBT was only about 30 minutes).

Since February 2008, the LBT has been used for normal InterCity routes. Travel time between Visp and Spiez is about 28 minutes (about 16 minutes in the LBT).

Completion status

Due to the soaring costs of the AlpTransit initiative, funds were diverted to the Gotthard Base Tunnel

Gotthard Base Tunnel

; and the LBT is only half finished. The fully complete LBT will consist of two single track

Single track (rail)

A single track railway is where trains in both directions share the same track. Single track is normally used on lesser used rail lines, often branch lines, where the traffic density is not high enough to justify the cost of building double tracks....

bores side by side from portal to portal, connected about every 300 metres (984.3 ft) with cross cuts, enabling the other tunnel to be used for escape.

Currently from South to North a third of the tunnel is double track

Double track

A double track railway usually involves running one track in each direction, compared to a single track railway where trains in both directions share the same track.- Overview :...

, a third single track with the second bore in place, and a third with only one single track tunnel, the parallel exploration adit

Adit

An adit is an entrance to an underground mine which is horizontal or nearly horizontal, by which the mine can be entered, drained of water, and ventilated.-Construction:...

providing emergency egress. The construction is divided into 3 phases with phase 1 completed to date:

Phase 1: construction of about 75% of the length of the West tube and the complete East tube of the main tunnel, the Engstlige tunnel, the two bridges across the Rhône, and the branch bore from Steg. Tracks are laid in the Eastern tubes of the LBT and Engstlige tunnels, and for some 12 km (7.5 mi) in the western tube of LBT, starting from the South.
Phase 2: laying of tracks in the bored but not equipped part of the western tube of LBT, and in the western tube of Engstlige tunnel.
Phase 3: construction of the remaining 8 km (5 mi) of the western tube, laying tracks on the Steg branch, and connection of this branch to the main line Brig-Lausanne, but towards Lausanne.

Phases 2 and 3 may be done together. Completing the LBT is estimated to cost 1 billion Swiss franc

Swiss franc

s. The project also includes two parallel bridges over the Rhône river in canton Valais, the 2.6 km (1.6 mi) Engstlige tunnel (built with cut-and-cover method; the 2 tracks are separated by a wall

Wall

A wall is a usually solid structure that defines and sometimes protects an area. Most commonly, a wall delineates a building and supports its superstructure, separates space in buildings into rooms, or protects or delineates a space in the open air...

Operation

About 110 trains per day use the LBT, and 66 use the old mountain tunnel, because of the single track. Of the 110, 30 are passenger and 80 are freight, including both intermodal freight transport

Intermodal freight transport

Intermodal freight transport involves the transportation of freight in an intermodal container or vehicle, using multiple modes of transportation , without any handling of the freight itself when changing modes. The method reduces cargo handling, and so improves security, reduces damages and...

plus heavy freight trains. Heavy freight trains up to a maximum weight of 4,000 tons and a maximum length of 1,500 metres have to use the LBT, as they can't use the existing mountain track.

There are about 21 km of single track without passing loops; trains more than 7 minutes late are either routed via the old line (incurring further delay) or must wait for the next available timetable slot in the LBT.

Travel speeds

Regular freight trains: 100 km/h (62.1 mph)
Qualified freight trains: 160 km/h (99.4 mph)
Passenger trains: 200 km/h (124.3 mph)
Tilting passenger trains
Tilting train
A tilting train is a train that has a mechanism enabling increased speed on regular rail tracks. As a train rounds a curve at speed, objects inside the train experience centrifugal force. This can cause packages to slide about or seated passengers to feel squashed by the outboard armrest due to...

: 250 km/h (155.3 mph)

Geothermal energy

The warmth of the water flowing out of the tunnel is used to heat the Tropenhaus Frutigen

Tropenhaus Frutigen

The Tropenhaus in Frutigen, Switzerland is a commercial project using geothermal energy from the Lötschberg rail tunnel for the production of exotic fruit, sturgeon meat and caviar in a tropical greenhouse in the Swiss alps...

, a tropical greenhouse producing exotic fruit, sturgeon

Sturgeon

Sturgeon is the common name used for some 26 species of fish in the family Acipenseridae, including the genera Acipenser, Huso, Scaphirhynchus and Pseudoscaphirhynchus. The term includes over 20 species commonly referred to as sturgeon and several closely related species that have distinct common...

meat and caviar

Caviar

Caviar, sometimes called black caviar, is a luxury delicacy, consisting of processed, salted, non-fertilized sturgeon roe. The roe can be "fresh" or pasteurized, the latter having much less culinary and economic value....

External links

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