Porta Alpina was a proposed railway station to be located in the middle of 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....

 in southern 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....

. The project was put on indefinite hold in 2007. It would have been the deepest underground train station in the world.

Porta Alpina was proposed to be located near a crossover between the northbound and southbound tunnels. It was to be linked to the surface by the world's highest elevator

Elevator

An elevator is a type of vertical transport equipment that efficiently moves people or goods between floors of a building, vessel or other structures...

, using shafts built near the village of Sedrun for the construction of the tunnel. Construction costs were estimated at 40-50 million Swiss franc

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...

s, with annual operating costs of 2.5 million francs. The station was to open in 2015 when the Base Tunnel is scheduled to come into service.

Proponents of Porta Alpina viewed it both as a potential tourist attraction in its own right, and as a useful transport link to assist the economically challenged Graubuenden region. The station would have connected the North/South Gotthard railway line with the East/West Rhaetian Railway

RhB

The Rhaetian Railway is a Swiss transport company, owning the largest network of all the private railways in Switzerland. The company operates most of the railways in the Swiss canton of Graubünden as the Swiss federal railway company SBB-CFF-FFS extend only a few kilometres over the cantonal...

/Matterhorn-Gotthard Railway

Matterhorn-Gotthard-Bahn

The Matterhorn-Gotthard-Bahn is a narrow gauge railway in Switzerland. The track width is . It was created in 2003 through an amalgamation of Furka-Oberalp-Bahn and BVZ Zermatt-Bahn . The name comes from the Matterhorn and St...

, which would link to the elevator by means of local buses to Sedrun station (MGB) and Disentis

Disentis/Mustér

-Demographics:Disentis/Mustér has a population of . , 8.9% of the population was made up of foreign nationals. Over the last 10 years the population has decreased at a rate of -4.7%....

 station (RhB). This was to have been the fastest public transport link between Zürich

Zürich

Zurich is the largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zurich. It is located in central Switzerland at the northwestern tip of Lake Zurich...

 and the canton of Graubünden

Graubünden

Graubünden or Grisons is the largest and easternmost canton of Switzerland. The canton shares borders with the cantons of Ticino, Uri, Glarus and St. Gallen and international borders with Italy, Austria and Liechtenstein...

.

The project was initially positively received, and the Swiss parliament approved CHF

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...

 7.5 million of startup funding in 2005. However, further studies indicated substantial problems including the questionable feasibility of the elevators, the negative impact on tunnel rail capacity and the unprofitability of the whole enterprise. The Swiss Federal Council

Swiss Federal Council

The Federal Council is the seven-member executive council which constitutes the federal government of Switzerland and serves as the Swiss collective head of state....

 and the government of the canton of Graubünden

Graubünden

Graubünden or Grisons is the largest and easternmost canton of Switzerland. The canton shares borders with the cantons of Ticino, Uri, Glarus and St. Gallen and international borders with Italy, Austria and Liechtenstein...

announced in September 2007 that the project was put on indefinite hold.