22 ms·
Switzerland begins tests on the longest train tunnel in the world
- Gladdyu 11y agoAh, they seem to have found a new use for the LHC tunnel :)
- maxxxxx 11y agoI guess they could use the train tunnel as particle accelerator during downtimes :-)
- miander 11y agoThis is a really cool tunnel! It's a single tunnel 57km long and the trains are all-electric. There was a nice comment thread a couple months ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10465597 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10465597
- herbst 11y agoI wonder, what else would the train be other than electric?
- rmoriz 11y agoIn the US most railway lines are not electrified.
- herbst 11y agoThat not exactly answers my question and is no surprise ether. I never heard anyone praising the public transportation system of the U.S. also everyone and their childs appear to have 2 cars. This is simply not the case in Switzerland. Most people take the train/tram if it is not reachable by bike.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- smackfu 11y agoMost rail lines in the US are used for freight. Is electric a good option in that case?
- thallian 11y agoSBB Cargo uses electric trains except for the shunters. I can't comment if it's a good idea though.
- rmoriz 11y agoIt is a good idea. SBB started to electify very early (1920s) because they never had a reliable access to oil (especially not in the war times) but lots of hydroelectric power. Also there is a lot higher traffic densitiy in main lines in Europe which also justifies the cost for building and keeping the infrastructure.
- jcranmer 11y agoDiesel locomotives are closer to electric cars than they are to diesel cars or trucks--the actual traction motors are electric, and the diesel itself is just a diesel generator for power. This means that the main disadvantages of diesel over electric are sourcing fuel, more moving parts to maintain, and some exhaust issues. However, the US railroad network was essentially built out in the steam era, and steam locomotives have much more severe requirements for all of these problems. Going to diesel from steam was already a win. The problems with electric trains is needing to supply and maintain catenaries, needing to source enough power, and needing to cope with highly variable electric demand (trains use much more power when they hit a steep incline). In the early 20th century, when railroads were replacing their steam locomotives, the rural electrification projects in the US just didn't exist yet, which made electrification of mainline railroad track quite expensive. The few railroads that tried ended up bankrupting themselves in the process. Another drawback of electrification that's only obvious in hindsight is that installing catenaries makes enlarging the load gauge that much more costly--if the US had mostly electrified its freight track, it likely would have never developed double-stacked container trains (absent in much of Europe since the electrical catenaries provide insufficient clearance), a development which did much to revitalize the railroad industry.
- djcapelis 11y agoDiesel trains are still very common in many parts of the world.
- bontoJR 11y agoYeah, in Switzerland they are pretty uncommon for civil transportation, but very common for transportation of goods, considering that a lot of big companies have private rails connecting warehouses to the national network that, ofc these rails are w/o electric wires.
- rasur 11y agoI beg to differ, I see and sometimes use diesel trains on a daily basis in .ch But that's not to take away from Switzerland having a very high percentage of trains being electric only.
- herbst 11y agoWhich one? I use SBB and BLS regulary and i never noticed anything else than electric. (Really just wondering as i have no idea)
- bontoJR 11y agome too, I travel regularly from Basel to Lugano, daily in the Bern - Zürich, also using regional trains and never saw a diesel machine for passengers transportation, except for some rare unexpected cases. I traveled some times from Zürich to Munich and saw that in the German side, rails have no electricity and then the SBB are forced to use a diesel powered machine, but except for that, I still have to find a connection where the diesel machine is necessary every time, I am curious!
- ccozan 11y agoActually, due to increasing traffing from Switzerland to Munich, Deutsch Bahn decided last year to upgrade and electrify the connection from Lindau up to ( I think ) Geltendorf.
- ianpurton 11y agoSteam.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- herbst 11y agoI am pretty sure you cant do that near any modern city because of the smog. Or sure you could, but not if you care about a nice city image.
- needusername 11y agohttp://www.brienz-rothorn-bahn.ch/en/experience/railway.html http://www.brienz-rothorn-bahn.ch/en/experience/railway.html
- herbst 11y agoThis kind of proofs my point. This thing is a mountain train, there are not cities that could be considered big on the way at all. Its also a nice experience :)
- samcheng 11y agoSwitzerland is awesomely-electrified, but there are still branch lines that don't have overhead wires. Diesel locomotives (actually, the Diesel generators generate electricity that then powers the traction motors) are still in common use all over the world.
- noipv4 11y agoSwiss innovate a lot in locomotive tech. (ABB and Stadler are 2 big companies that do a lot of electric loco R&D) The TILO (Ticino Lombardia) Swiss trains (S10, Stadler FLIRT) can run on both 15kv AC (Swiss) or 3kv DC (Italy) power systems when they cross the borders. No de-boarding and re-boarding to a different train is required. http://www.tilo.ch/en/Azienda/Treni.html http://www.tilo.ch/en/Azienda/Treni.html
- ucaetano 11y agoThe cascade tunnel, longest rail tunnel in the US with 12.5km isn't electrified and has only diesel trains running through it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cascade_Tunnel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cascade_Tunnel
- s3nnyy 11y agoThe public transport in Switzerland is really superb, haven't seen anything like it anywhere else.
- frik 11y agoAll neighbour countries have very similar public transport.
- saiya-jin 11y agonot true at all, I can attest French public transport for example is slow and basic compared to swiss one (apart from TGV trains, which covers just few main places). In Switzerland, you don't have to use car because train will get you there as fast/faster than car in most cases. good luck with that anywhere around unless you travel between train stations.
- frik 11y agowell, then almost all neighbor countries. France is a special case anyway, as it's road/railway infrastructure is very focused to connect everything with Paris as the center point.
- hanniabu 11y agoI wish the US had the transportation culture of Switzerland, in reference to a nice forward infrastructure. All we have here are old diesel trains, crappy busses, and corrupt politicians and companies that tell us we can't have any better. And to add insult to injury, they keep raising fairs and increasing delays and down time.
- fredley 11y agoIn order to get shiny new trains and big public infrastructure projects like this, you need to pay a lot of tax, and this model does not go down well with the American electorate, generally speaking.
- ulfw 11y agoTrue. But it is a fallacy to believe US taxes were low. They aren't. Especially in NY and CA.
- fredley 11y agoAgreed, being able to levy fees on probably the largest bank accounts in the world, and not having to pay upkeep on a nuclear arsenal probably helps too.
- rayiner 11y agoU.S. total taxation as percentage of GDP is the lowest of any of its peers in the West. Only a few developed countries are lower (HK, Singapore).
- david927 11y agoOnly because the rich don't pay taxes in the US. As a middle-class American who lived and worked for a decade in Switzerland (and I made more money there), I can confirm that I always paid less as a percentage in Switzerland.
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- lazyant 11y agoI imagine such tunnel needs vertical vents every x meters or there would be funny air compression effects or rarified air issues?
- rsync 11y agoThey need a lot of airway and exit tunnels - and not just for compression effects - a tunnel can become a very dangerous place very quickly: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mont_Blanc_Tunnel#The_1999_fire https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mont_Blanc_Tunnel#The_1999_fir...
- mortenjorck 11y ago57km (35.4 miles) may sound impressive enough in isolation, but it's not until you start putting it into real-world context that you realize just how monumental a tunnel this is: Imagine driving any of these commutes entirely underground: - The Chicago Loop to Naperville (31 miles) - SF SOMA to Palo Alto (33 miles) - Midtown Manhattan to Perth Amboy (32 miles)
- secondtimeuse 11y ago~Wall Street to Westchester County (35 miles)
- timjahn 11y agoLiving in Chicago, the Chicago Loop - Naperville comparison hit me....wow! That's quite an accomplishment.