{"id":431550,"date":"2026-05-18T18:52:40","date_gmt":"2026-05-18T08:52:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.railfreight.com\/?p=71207"},"modified":"2026-05-18T18:52:40","modified_gmt":"2026-05-18T08:52:40","slug":"new-controversy-surrounds-the-gotthard-base-tunnel-derailment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/?p=431550","title":{"rendered":"New controversy surrounds the Gotthard Base Tunnel derailment"},"content":{"rendered":"

After almost three years, the derailment in the Gotthard Base Tunnel of August 2023 is still under the spotlight. The public minister of the Ticino Canton is now claiming that the Swiss Federal Railway (SBB) could have done more to contain the damage, an accusation rejected by the company. The Swiss Association of the Shipping Industry (VAP) is now urging for a thorough investigation.<\/strong>
\n<\/span>Let\u2019s start from the beginning. A freight train derailed inside the Gotthard Base Tunnel on 10 August 2023 due to a crack in a wheel. The train continued to run with the faulty wheel, causing significant damage which left the tunnel unavailable for over a year. The Ticino minister is saying that SBB could have avoided some of the damages \u201chad (their) operations control centre acted on the eight alarm messages\u201d, VAP explained.<\/p>\n

SBB, on the other hand, has rejected the accusation, underlining the dubious validity of the report from the Ticino minister. \u201cNo one shares it: neither the competent independent investigative body, the Swiss Railway Safety Investigation Board, nor the Federal Office of Transport (FOT), nor an independent railway expert cited in the report\u201d. The company added that it submitted its detailed position to the Ticinese public prosecutor.<\/p>\n

One issue after the other<\/h2>\n

This new controversy comes after the one regarding the very cause of the derailment \u2013 rail freight wheelsets. The investigation showed that the crack in the wheel of the wagon that started the accident was undetectable and that many more wheelsets all over Europe might be at risk. As a consequence, discussions started to implement new regulations aimed at preventing similar episodes.<\/p>\n

The problem here is that Switzerland and the EU did not necessarily see eye to eye. The Swiss side, led by the FOT, decided to implement its own rules at its own pace, somewhat disregarding what the rest of the Union would do. At the same time, the European Union Agency for Railways (ERA) was working on new regulations to be applied to all Member States and Switzerland.<\/p>\n

Initially, this led to significant tensions. EU associations and organisations strongly criticised the Swiss unilateral move. Wagon keepers took it one step further and brought the matter in front of a Swiss court. Now, the waters seem calmer, with Switzerland being open to withdraw their unilateral rules if ERA, via the Joint Network Secretariat, comes up with a harmonised framework that satisfies the FOT.<\/p>\n

\"Broken
The broken wheel that caused the derailment in the Gotthard. Image: \u00a9 Swiss Safety Investigation Board<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After almost three years, the derailment in the Gotthard Base Tunnel of August 2023 is still under the spotlight. The public minister of the Ticino\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3740,343,471,47,4326,350,20270,18150],"tags":[12634],"class_list":["post-431550","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-gotthard-base-tunnel","category-infrastructure","category-news","category-rail-news","category-sbb","category-switzerland","category-ticino","category-vap","tag-railfreight"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/431550","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=431550"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/431550\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":431564,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/431550\/revisions\/431564"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=431550"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=431550"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=431550"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}