Why Switzerland built a 2-kilometer-long train

(CNN) — Excessive within the Swiss Alps, St Moritz made its title as a spot for pushing the boundaries of winter sport. By the point it hosted the second Winter Olympics Video games in 1928 its repute as a playground for rich adventurers was already nicely established.

On Saturday, the area continued its lengthy custom of increasing the boundaries of what’s potential with an epic world file try — not on snow or ice, however on rails.

To have fun the one hundred and seventy fifth anniversary of Switzerland’s first railway, the nation’s rail trade got here collectively to run the world’s longest-ever passenger practice — 100 vehicles, 2,990 tonnes and nearly two kilometres lengthy.

Fashioned of 25 new “Capricorn” electrical trains the record-breaking 1,906-meter practice took nearly an hour to cowl round 25 kilometers (about 15 miles) over the spectacular UNESCO World Heritage Albula Line from Preda to Alvaneu in jap Switzerland.

Just like the legendary Cresta Run toboggan monitor, the Albula Line is legendary for its countless swooping curves and steep descents. A world-renowned masterpiece of civil engineering, the 62-kilometer line between Thusis and St Moritz took simply 5 years to construct regardless of requiring 55 bridges and 39 tunnels.

Previous to its completion in July 1904, guests confronted a dangerous 14-hour journey over tough tracks in horse-drawn carriages or sledges.

Centerpiece of the road is the 5,866-meter-long Albula Tunnel, which runs deep beneath the watershed between the Rhine and Danube rivers.

Spirals, hovering viaducts and tunnels

Following a part of the route taken by the world-famous Glacier Specific since 1930, the world file try took within the spectacular Landwasser Viaduct and the extraordinary spirals that secured the road’s worldwide heritage standing.

In lower than 25 kilometers, the practice plummeted from 1,788 meters above sea degree at Preda to 999.3 meters at Alvaneu, utilizing a succession of spirals, hovering viaducts and tunnels.

The file try was organized by the Rhaetische Bahn (Rhaetian Railway, or RhB), supported by Swiss train-builder Stadler, and is probably much more astonishing for happening on a slender gauge railway.

In contrast to most Swiss and European railways, which use the “commonplace” gauge between the rails of 1.435 meters (4 ft 8.5 inches), RhB rails are only one meter aside.

Mix this with a route with notoriously tight curves, steep gradients, 22 tunnels and 48 bridges over deep valleys and the challenges turn into apparent.

Earlier holders of the world’s longest passenger practice file — Belgium and, earlier than that, the Netherlands — used commonplace gauge railways via flat landscapes to their benefit.

Nonetheless, preparations began months forward of the RhB occasion, together with check runs to make sure the distinctive practice may very well be operated safely.

“Everyone knows the Albula Line very nicely, each change of gradient, each incline,” stated lead driver Andreas Kramer, 46, forward of the massive day. “It goes with out saying that we’re going via the method repeatedly.”

He added: “We should be 100% synchronized, each second. Everybody has to maintain their velocity and different techniques beneath management always.”

An preliminary check run led to failure earlier than the practice had even moved when it was found that the emergency brake system couldn’t be activated and the seven drivers couldn’t talk with one another through radio or cellphone within the many tunnels.

Kramer, assisted by six different drivers and 21 technicians as a substitute used a brief area phone system arrange by the Swiss Civil Safety group to take care of communications because the practice ran at as much as 35 km/h via numerous tunnels and deep valleys.

Specifically modified software program and an intercom between the seven drivers allowed the 25 trains to work in concord. Any mismatch in acceleration or deceleration through the journey would have exerted unacceptably excessive forces on tracks and energy provides, creating a significant security difficulty.

RhB Director Renato Fasciati stated: “Switzerland is a railway nation like no different. This yr, we’re celebrating 175 years of Swiss railways. With this world file try, RhB and its companions wished to play their half in reaching a pioneering feat that had by no means been seen earlier than.”

Social gathering environment

On the lengthy descent, velocity was managed by regenerative braking, just like that used on some electrical vehicles, which fed present again into the 11,000-volt overhead energy provide traces.

Nonetheless, with so many trains in the identical part of line, there was concern that they may feed an excessive amount of present again into the system, overloading each trains and native energy grids. To keep away from this, the highest velocity of the practice was restricted to 35 km/h and software program needed to be modified to limit the facility being fed again.

Extra security management cables additionally needed to be fitted all through the practice to help the usual mechanical and pneumatic connections between trains.

On the massive day, the RhB organized a railway pageant at Bergün and three,000 fortunate ticket holders had been capable of witness the file try through a stay TV feed whereas additionally having fun with native leisure and gastronomy. Regular providers via the Albula Tunnel to St Moritz and past had been suspended for 12 hours.

Three satellite tv for pc uplinks, 19 cameras in drones and helicopters, on the practice and alongside the monitor filmed the practice, offering a novel file of this once-in-a-lifetime occasion. This alone was a significant problem in a distant, mountainous area with restricted cell telecoms protection.

A railway nation

For a small nation with a mountainous panorama which, at first look, appears unsuited to railways, Switzerland punches nicely above its weight within the trade.

Necessity has lengthy made it a pioneer in electrical, mechanical and civil engineering and its know-how and experience are exported everywhere in the world.

With good cause, the Swiss are the world’s most enthusiastic rail customers, touring a mean of two,450 kilometers yearly by practice — 1 / 4 of their total annual whole. In frequent with different European international locations, mobility has exploded in current many years — the typical annual distance travelled by automotive and public transport has doubled within the final 50 years.

They traveled 19.7 billion passenger kilometers by rail in 2019, the final “regular” yr earlier than the Covid-19 pandemic. In 2021 this fell to 12.5 billion passenger kilometers however as Switzerland celebrates 175 years since its first railway opened between Zürich and Baden, ridership is nicely on the best way again to pre-pandemic ranges.

So excessive are the expectations of public transport customers in Switzerland that even a small delay is a supply of quiet dissatisfaction. And never with out good cause; many journeys in and round Switzerland’s largest cities are multi-modal, reliant on slick connections between trains, trams, buses and even boats at well-organized interchanges.

In 2021, Swiss Federal Railways (SBB) operated 11,260 trains carrying 880,000 passengers and 185,000 tonnes of freight per day on a 3,265 kilometer-long community with 804 stations.

Including the 70-plus “non-public” commonplace and slender gauge railways, a lot of that are additionally partly or totally in public possession, takes that community to round 5,300 kilometers, the densest rail community on the planet.

Many years of long-term funding have created a core community of intensively used essential traces linking all of the nation’s main cities. Feeding into this are high-frequency S-Bahn (metropolis rail) techniques across the largest cities plus regional and native railway traces, tramways and mountain railways, a lot of which offer a essential hyperlink to the skin world for rural and upland communities.

Regardless of large funding over the past 4 many years, via long-term enlargement packages resembling “Bahn 2000.” Switzerland’s railways have gotten a sufferer of their very own success. Whereas SBB’s total punctuality nonetheless seems spectacular to outsiders, there’s concern about deteriorating efficiency, rising prices and its means to fund important upkeep and main tasks after the devastating monetary losses of 2020-21.

Disruption continues to be comparatively uncommon on the SBB community, however reliability has decreased lately on account of congestion, workers shortages and poor punctuality of trains arriving from neighboring international locations.

Strategic place

Sitting on the coronary heart of western Europe, between the economic powerhouses of Germany, France and northern Italy, Switzerland additionally performs a key strategic position within the wider European financial system — because it has for the reason that Center Ages.

For hundreds of years, the Alps offered a formidable barrier to vacationers and commerce throughout this a part of Europe however over the past 20 years, billions of Swiss Francs have been invested to construct the prolonged Gotthard and Loetschberg Base Tunnels deep beneath the Alps.

Whereas different international locations argue and dither over public transport spending, in June 2022 the Swiss Federal Council opened consultations on its subsequent program of long-term rail funding. Perspektive Bahn 2050 is an in depth set of proposals with a transparent concentrate on growing quick and medium-distance passenger providers to advertise a shift away from vehicles.

Enhancement of the prevailing community to create further capability is to be prioritized over extra main infrastructure tasks. Transport Minister Simonetta Sommaruga says: “It isn’t a query of saving a couple of minutes on a trunk route resembling Zürich-Bern. Rail is already unbeatable on routes like that. It’s somewhat about enlargement the place rail has been left behind.”

Anticipated to be handed into legislation by 2026, the plan’s goals embrace rising annual public transport utilization from 26 billion passenger-kilometers to 38 billionn passenger-kilometers by 2050, rising rail’s share of the passenger and freight markets “considerably” and guaranteeing that rail providers are much more carefully built-in with different transport modes to supply larger mobility for all.

Critics typically cite Switzerland’s smaller inhabitants and comparatively quick distances when evaluating it to international locations such because the UK and Germany, claiming that it will be not possible to create related built-in public transport networks in bigger international locations.

It is true that the Swiss have constructed one thing ideally suited to their geography, tradition and inhabitants density, however regardless of the arguments elsewhere, the RhB’s unbelievable achievement on October 29 is a vastly spectacular demonstration of Switzerland’s world-class capabilities within the area of railway know-how.