Lötschberg Tunnel

The Lötschberg Tunnel is a 14.61-kilometre-long (9.08 mi) railway tunnel on the Lötschberg Line, which connects Spiez and Brig at the northern end of the Simplon Tunnel, cutting through the Bernese Alps of Switzerland. Its ends are at the towns of Kandersteg (2 km away) in the canton of Bern and Goppenstein in the canton of Valais. The top elevation of the tunnel is 1,240 m (4, 070 ft) above sea level—this is the highest point of the main Swiss railway network. Construction began in 1907 and suffered delays by several severe accidents. February 1908: An avalanche destroyed a hotel that the workers lived in, killing 13. July 1908: The tunnel broke into a deep fissure below the Gastern Valley and flooded with water and glacial deposit from the fissure, killing 25, and 1,554 metres (5, 098 ft) of the tunnel had to be abandoned and sealed off and replaced by a curved bypass. March 1911: Breakthrough was achieved 3 June 1913: Finalization 15 July 1913: Regular service began. The tunnel is a single-bore twin track. The BLS AG company offers a car-transport service through the tunnel, between Kandersteg station and Goppenstein station, for accompanied vehicles. The journey time is approximately 20 minutes; passengers remain in their cars in open-sided car-transport vehicles. At peak times, the car-transport service operates in each direction every 7½ minutes. The new Lötschberg Base Tu

Tunnel data from Wikidata (CC0). Summary from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA).