{"id":119181,"date":"2024-09-02T18:08:08","date_gmt":"2024-09-02T08:08:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.railfreight.com\/?p=55732"},"modified":"2024-09-02T18:08:08","modified_gmt":"2024-09-02T08:08:08","slug":"the-gotthard-base-tunnel-reopens-today","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/?p=119181","title":{"rendered":"The Gotthard Base Tunnel reopens today"},"content":{"rendered":"

Monday 2 September marks the grand reopening of the Gotthard Base Tunnel, after a year-long closure following a derailment. The tunnel is the main rail connection between Italy and Switzerland, and the closure has caused major headaches for the rail freight industry.<\/strong>
\n<\/span>The Gotthard tunnel was closed after a Swiss Federal Railways freight train derailed due to a broken wheel on 10 August 2023<\/a>. The damage to the tunnel was extensive, forcing a long-time closure.<\/p>\n

The tunnel\u2019s downtime has been a disaster for freight operators that usually send their trains through there. It is the only line in the area equipped to handle freight trains with a 4-metre profile. Re-routing freight trains has been a Herculean task for operators, especially Italian ones, both in terms of costs and capacity availability.<\/p>\n

A few weeks after the accident, SBB decided to reopen the undamaged eastern tunnel exclusively for freight trains, which allowed the transit of around 100 trains daily.<\/p>\n