On 11 December 2016, SBB started running passenger services through the new Gotthard Base Tunnel (GBT). The first weeks of operation through the world’s longest railway tunnel have been relatively smooth. As a rule, passenger trains will travel through the Gotthard Base Tunnel at speeds of up to 200km/hour, compared to 100km/hour for freight trains.

The 57-kilometre tunnel, connecting Erstfeld to Biasca, will provide more capacity, faster links and more reliability when it comes to rail freight transport. Since the timetable change on 11 December 2016, up to four freight trains per hour can run in both directions. Freight services will have their train path capacity raised from 180 to 210 trains per day. Passenger journey times along the north-south Gotthard corridor have been cut by around 30 minutes. Around 48 passenger trains will travel through the new tunnel every day.

The tunnel underwent a series of tests before entering service. From 1 June to 11 December 2016, 4500 freight trains and 500 passenger trains travelled through the structure as part of an operation trial period. This enabled current operating conditions in the Gotthard Base Tunnel to be simulated as realistically as possible.

The new Gotthard corridor will be deployed to its full capacity at the end of 2020 when the the Ceneri Base Tunnel and the four-metre corridor become operational. Freight capacity will be increased on the Gotthard corridor to 260 trains per day, while passenger journey times between the German-speaking part of Switzerland and Milan will be cut by up to an hour.

(Source: SBB)