Gotthard, complete reopening of the railway tunnel from 2 September

The Swiss Federal Railways (SBB) anticipate that passenger and goods trains will be able to runfairly and without restriction again in the Gotthard Base Tunnel (Gottardo) from 2 September 2024. Specifically, there will be 750 freight trains running daily through the world's longest railway tunnel and 480 passenger trains. This is good news for the Italian logistics system: the Gotthard, a key section of the European Rhine-Alpine corridor (Genoa-Rotterdam), makes it possible to connect Ligurian ports and the North West area with the rich markets of Central and Northern Europe. The date for the reopening of the 57-kilometre-long tunnel was indicated by Sbb's executives (Peter Kummer, head of Sbb Infrastructure, and Beat Deuber, head of network design, facilities and technology at Sbb) at an international press conference convened at the headquarters of the Swiss railways in Bern. But let's go in order.

On 10 August 2023, a goods train bound for Germany derailed while passing through the Gotthard base tunnel, severely damaging the tunnel infrastructure. There were no injuries and there was no spillage of dangerous goods, but the accident disrupted rail links between northern and southern Europe (including Italy). After the derailment, the tunnel was largely closed to passenger traffic and trains were diverted. For travellers, the diversion of trains on the Gotthard panoramic line meant longer journey times. Only a reduced route for freight trains was allowed, due to the strategic importance of this link for international trade.

Since the derailment last summer, the two Swiss railway executives explain, 'the company has accelerated the work in the Gotthard base tunnel as much as possible to restore it. Everything is proceeding as planned. As of today, Swiss Railways expects to be able to put the world's longest railway tunnel fully back into service on 2 September 2024. In this way, trains will be able to run again with the journey times prior to the derailment, thus taking one hour less than if they were diverted along the Gotthard panoramic line. Travellers will thus be able to travel between Lugano and Zurich in less than two hours'.

Before putting the west tunnel of the Gotthard Base Tunnel back into service, the Swiss railways must complete the test and trial phase, in which the functionality of all equipment and systems is thoroughly checked in a process similar to the one that preceded the commissioning in 2016. For example, during the test phase, empty trains will be run to test the new facilities, especially the tracks, and the interactions between the different systems. In the test phase, on the other hand, which will take place from mid-August, northbound trains will resume running in the west tunnel according to the timetable. In addition, some trains that normally run on the Gotthard Panorama Line will also be diverted to the west tunnel of the base tunnel.

The final report on the cause of the accident, drawn up by the Swiss Safety Investigation Service (Sisi), has yet to be published, but in an interim report it was established that the derailment was caused by the broken wheel disc. In its own fleet, Swiss Railways has no freight or passenger vehicles with this type of wheelset fitted, but it is used in freight traffic by other railway companies in Europe and therefore also runs in Switzerland. For this reason, measures must be defined at European level for wheelsets used internationally, which Sisi outlined in its interim report. Following the publication of the latter, the Federal Office of Transport appealed to the European railway authorities to oblige all owners of freight wagons using vehicles with similar wheels to check them and, if necessary, to take them out of service.