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There's a great 360° video on Youtube that shows both the tunnel as well as the Gotthard massif through which the tunnel leads. It's in German, but the visuals

There's a great 360° video on Youtube that shows both the tunnel as well as the Gotthard massif through which the tunnel leads. It's in German, but the visuals are impressive on their own. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qDSCtXvL51o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qDSCtXvL51o

tajen 10y ago
OMG I just understood what you meant with 360! You can swipe to the direction you want, like in Quicktime VR, but animated! I didn't know Youtube made it possible! The video was just showing the rails, I thought it was boring until I understood the concept.
- jakub_g 10y ago
  Thanks for the comment. BTW Make sure to open the video in Chrome or Opera, the 360 thing does not work in Firefox
  - j4_james 10y ago
    FWIW, it works for me in Firefox on Windows 10. Click and drag with the mouse, clicking on the arrows, or swiping on a touchscreen all work fine.
    - icebraining 10y ago
      Same here with FF 46 on Ubuntu.
      - jakub_g 10y ago
        Ok turns out I had webgl disabled in Firefox in about:config. False alarm.
- Piskvorrr 10y ago
  Yup, the default direction of the camera is somewhat unfortunate - and there's no hint of controlling it :(
- piquadrat 10y ago
  Make sure to open it on your mobile or tablet. You can pan around physically with your device, which makes it quite immersive (more so if you have a VR device, of course).
- Analemma_ 10y ago
  If you've got a recent-ish smartphone, I would highly recommend getting yourself a Google Cardboard for watching YouTube 360 videos, it really makes it even cooler. Yeah it's "poor man's VR" and certainly not in the same league as things like the Rift/Vive, but it's 15 bucks, so why not? I definitely feel like I've gotten 15 bucks worth of use out of mine, mostly because of videos like this.
sschueller 10y ago
I'm still hoping that they will build that underground train station eventually. Would be awesome.
- piquadrat 10y ago
  I'm afraid that train has left the station (sorry for the pun). All the construction infrastructure is gone, and in half a year, there will be hundreds of trains thundering through the tunnel every day. The Porta Alpina was economically questionable to begin with, but now it would just be non-sensical. (Saying this as someone from a region that would have had an immense benefit of the Porta Alpina station)
  - Someone 10y ago
    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Porta_Alpina https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Porta_Alpina: Porta Alpina ("Alpine Gate") was a proposed railway station to be located in the middle of the Gotthard Base Tunnel in southern Switzerland. Intended to promote tourism and the economy in the region of Graubünden, the project was put on hold as uneconomical in 2007, and then indefinitely shelved by the Swiss authorities in 2012. Porta Alpina would have been the deepest underground train station in the world at 800 metres underground, outclassing by far Arsenalna Metro station at 105.5 metres. The station was proposed to be located near a crossover between the northbound and southbound tunnels and to be linked to the surface by the world's highest elevator, using shafts built near the village of Sedrun for the construction of the tunnel. Construction costs were estimated at 40-50 million Swiss francs, with annual operating costs of 2.5 million francs. It was initially projected to be opened in 2016 after the Base Tunnel was scheduled to come into service.

tajen 10y ago

OMG I just understood what you meant with 360! You can swipe to the direction you want, like in Quicktime VR, but animated! I didn't know Youtube made it possible! The video was just showing the rails, I thought it was boring until I understood the concept.

jakub_g 10y ago
Thanks for the comment. BTW Make sure to open the video in Chrome or Opera, the 360 thing does not work in Firefox
- j4_james 10y ago
  FWIW, it works for me in Firefox on Windows 10. Click and drag with the mouse, clicking on the arrows, or swiping on a touchscreen all work fine.
  - icebraining 10y ago
    Same here with FF 46 on Ubuntu.
    - jakub_g 10y ago
      Ok turns out I had webgl disabled in Firefox in about:config. False alarm.
Piskvorrr 10y ago
Yup, the default direction of the camera is somewhat unfortunate - and there's no hint of controlling it :(
piquadrat 10y ago
Make sure to open it on your mobile or tablet. You can pan around physically with your device, which makes it quite immersive (more so if you have a VR device, of course).
Analemma_ 10y ago
If you've got a recent-ish smartphone, I would highly recommend getting yourself a Google Cardboard for watching YouTube 360 videos, it really makes it even cooler. Yeah it's "poor man's VR" and certainly not in the same league as things like the Rift/Vive, but it's 15 bucks, so why not? I definitely feel like I've gotten 15 bucks worth of use out of mine, mostly because of videos like this.

sschueller 10y ago

I'm still hoping that they will build that underground train station eventually. Would be awesome.

piquadrat 10y ago
I'm afraid that train has left the station (sorry for the pun). All the construction infrastructure is gone, and in half a year, there will be hundreds of trains thundering through the tunnel every day. The Porta Alpina was economically questionable to begin with, but now it would just be non-sensical. (Saying this as someone from a region that would have had an immense benefit of the Porta Alpina station)
- Someone 10y ago
  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Porta_Alpina https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Porta_Alpina: Porta Alpina ("Alpine Gate") was a proposed railway station to be located in the middle of the Gotthard Base Tunnel in southern Switzerland. Intended to promote tourism and the economy in the region of Graubünden, the project was put on hold as uneconomical in 2007, and then indefinitely shelved by the Swiss authorities in 2012. Porta Alpina would have been the deepest underground train station in the world at 800 metres underground, outclassing by far Arsenalna Metro station at 105.5 metres. The station was proposed to be located near a crossover between the northbound and southbound tunnels and to be linked to the surface by the world's highest elevator, using shafts built near the village of Sedrun for the construction of the tunnel. Construction costs were estimated at 40-50 million Swiss francs, with annual operating costs of 2.5 million francs. It was initially projected to be opened in 2016 after the Base Tunnel was scheduled to come into service.