gotthard tunnel | Food, Travel, and Stories from a Swiss Chef Who Cooked Around the World

Pike-Perch Farming in Switzerland

Ulrich Koepf — Wed, 10 May 2023 15:40:20 +0000

(Unfortunately, the Video is in Swiss German only, however, it will give you a great idea of how this fish is being raised )

Basis 57 Pike-Perch

The history of the Gotthard Zander began in 2007 when it became clear that the construction of the new railway link through the Alps (NRLA) could make the purest mountain water economically usable. A handful of visionaries came together and developed the business idea of farmed edible fish from Urner’s Erstfeld. There were many ideas in the room: a Beer brewery, a mineral water production, a wellness oasis, or a surfing center. In the end, the freshwater edible fish won the race. The Basis 57 Sustainable Water Use GmbH was founded, which a few months later became the Basis 57 Sustainable Water Use AG. With the plan to set up one of the largest fish farms in Switzerland, the company began research and development work.

Around 14 years later, the former vision has become reality: Switzerland’s largest pike-perch farm is located directly at the north portal of the world’s longest railway tunnel, called the Gotthard Tunnel, 36 miles long, the car tunnel is 10 miles long and connects Switzerland with Italy in the south. A stone’s throw away from the entrance of the tunnel is the company’s own fish farm and office space in the Village of Erstfeld.

GOTTHARD-ZANDER
by Basis 57 sustainable water use AG

Fraumattstrasse 30 | 6472 Erstfeld
headquarters – 041 881 00 65 | info@basis57.ch
Sales – 041 881 00 71 | verkauf@basis57.ch
www.gotthard-zander.ch

The post Pike-Perch Farming in Switzerland first appeared on Food, Travel, and Stories from a Swiss Chef Who Cooked Around the World .

The Swiss Groundhogs!

Ulrich Koepf — Mon, 12 Sep 2022 11:46:04 +0000

https://www.ulrichkoepf.website/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/VID_20220910_151601.mp4

WHAT WILL BE BUILT?

The main Tunnel

The main tunnel runs parallel to the first tube at a distance of approx. 70 meters and will also be 16.9 kilometers long. The second tube will be connected to the existing tunnel system. The tunnel cross-section is round and has a diameter of approx. 12.3 meters. The lane in the tunnel, including the emergency lane, will be around 8 meters wide. A total of 68 connecting tunnels are planned at intervals of 250 meters along the entire length of the tunnel. The space above the roadway is available for the ventilation systems and is connected to the existing ventilation shafts.

Two service ducts are provided in the cavity under the roadway. All lines for electricity, communication, and extinguishing water, which are necessary for the maintenance of the tunnel, are installed in a canal. The second channel provides space for third-party infrastructures. For example, the power grid operator Swissgrid: They are replacing their existing high-voltage line over the Gotthard Pass with a new line in the road tunnel. Linking such a line to a road tunnel is a pioneering project across Europe. After commissioning, the old line over the Gotthard Pass will be dismantled.

The Gotthard tunnel between Göschenen, Uri, and Airolo, Ticino, needs extensive renovations and repairs. That would require a full lockdown of the tunnel. So that the north-south connection can be maintained during the renovation, the Federal Roads Office FEDRO will be building a second tunnel tube over the next few years. It is expected to be operational in 2029. Then the repair of the first, existing tube will start. Both tunnels will then be available as of 2032. Only one lane will be open in each direction, so the traffic capacity through the Gotthard will not be increased.

Delia, the name of the tunnel boring machine, is characterized by the pink color of its “body”. Ten elements with different equipment and installations are attached to the drill head so that the ready-to-use drilling machine has a total length of 175 meters and a total weight of 1,100 tons.

After the start-up phase, Delia will begin drilling through rock in August 2022 to the southern geological fault zone, 4.9 km away, which it is expected to reach in June 2023. With a head diameter of “only” 7.4 meters, Delia is one of two small tunnel-boring machines used on this site. In the main tunnel, two tunnel boring machines with a diameter of 12.3m work.

THE REGION

The construction of the second tube affects the surrounding region, the Urner Oberland and the Leventina Valley. The environmental compatibility of the project has been proven, but there are still unavoidable effects. These are compensated for with appropriate environmental protection measures to upgrade habitats and landscapes in the region.

LAKE DEPOSIT IN LAKE URI

The train transports around 3.5 million tons of rock material from the excavation of the second tube to Flüelen. There it is used for the renaturation of shallow water zones in Lake Uri. In this case, renaturation means the restoration of near-natural habitats and an increase in biological diversity

WAS WIRD GEBAUT?

Der Hauptunnel

Der Haupttunnel verläuft in ca. 70 Meter Distanz parallel zur ersten Röhre und wird ebenfalls 16,9 Kilometer lang sein. Die zweite Röhre wird an das bestehende Tunnelsystem angeschlossen. Der Tunnelquerschnitt ist rund und hat einen Durchmesser von ca. 12,3 Meter. Die Fahrbahn im Tunnel inklusive Pannenstreifen wird rund 8 Meter breit. Auf der gesamten Tunnellänge sind im Abstand von jeweils 250 Metern insgesamt 68 Verbindungsstollen geplant. Der Raum über der Fahrbahn steht für die Lüftungsanlagen zur Verfügung und er wird mit den bestehenden Lüftungsschächten verbunden.

Im Hohlraum unter der Fahrbahn sind zwei Werkleitungskanäle vorgesehen. In einem Kanal werden alle Leitungen für Strom, Kommunikation und Löschwasser installiert, die für den Unterhalt des Tunnels notwendig sind. Der zweite Kanal bietet Platz für Infrastrukturen von Dritten. Beispielsweise für die Stromnetzbetreiberin Swissgrid: Sie ersetzt ihre bestehende Hochspannungsleitung über den Gotthardpass durch eine neue Leitung im Strassentunnel. Die Verknüpfung einer solchen Leitung mit einem Strassentunnel ist europaweit ein Pionierprojekt. Nach der Inbetriebnahme wird die alte Leitung über den Gotthardpass zurückgebaut.

Der Gotthard-Strassentunnel zwischen Göschenen, Uri, und Airolo, Ticino, braucht eine umfangreiche Instandsetzung. Dafür wäre eine Vollsperrung notwendig. Damit die Nord-Süd-Verbindung während der Sanierung aufrechterhalten werden kann, baut das Bundesamt für Strasse ASTRA in den nächsten Jahren eine zweite Tunnelröhre. Sie ist voraussichtlich ab 2029 in Betrieb. Danach steht die Instandsetzung der ersten Röhre an. Ab 2032 stehen dann beide Tunnel zur Verfügung. Pro Richtung wird stets nur eine Fahrspur offen sein, die Verkehrskapazität durch den Gotthard wird also nicht erhöht.Delia, die Tunnelbohrmaschine, zeichnet sich durch die rosa Farbe ihres «Körpers» aus. Zehn Elemente mit verschiedenen Ausrüstungen und Installationen werden an den Bohrkopf angehängt, so dass die einsatzbereite Bohrmaschine eine Gesamtlänge von 175 Metern und ein Gesamtgewicht von 1’100 Tonnen erreicht.

Nach der Startphase wird Delia, der name der Tunnelbohrmaschine, sich ab August 2022 bis zur 4,9 km entfernten geologischen Störzone Süd durch den Fels bohren, welche sie im Juni 2023 erreichen soll. Mit einem Kopfdurchmesser von «nur» 7,4 Metern ist Delia eine von zwei kleinen Tunnelbohrmaschinen, die auf dieser Baustelle eingesetzt werden. Im Haupttunnel werden zwei Tunnelbohrmaschinen mit einem Durchmesser von 12,3 m arbeiten.

The post The Swiss Groundhogs! first appeared on Food, Travel, and Stories from a Swiss Chef Who Cooked Around the World .

A walk through Erstfeld, URI, Switzerland

Ulrich Koepf — Tue, 15 Dec 2020 16:57:54 +0000

Third longest train tunnel in Switzerland

Ulrich Koepf — Wed, 02 Sep 2020 15:37:59 +0000

The Ceneri tunnel is opened, the work of the century is completed

The new tunnel reduces travel times between Ticino and German-speaking Switzerland. And thanks to fast S-Bahn connections, it turns the southern canton into a “Città Ticino”. But some problems remain unsolved.

The time has come. The official opening of the new Ceneri Base Tunnel will be celebrated this Friday – in view of the coronavirus and the necessary protective measures, however, on a modest scale. Only a few dozen of the originally 650 invited guests will be there. Federal President Simonetta Sommaruga, Federal Councilor Ignazio Cassis, and others will officially hand over the tunnel to the operator SBB. Commissioning will follow in December with the changeover to the 2021 timetable.

Ex-Federal Councilor Moritz Leuenberger at the start of construction work in 2006

The Ceneri Base Tunnel, the New Alpine Transversal (Neat) is completed, construction of the century that took 28 years to complete – the Ceneri 14 years alone – and devoured around 22 billion francs. A flat railway through the Alps, “which, as a contribution to the protection of the Alps, should make an important contribution to shifting freight traffic from road to rail”, as Minister of Transport Sommaruga tirelessly repeated.

For rail customers, travel times between north and south are reduced by around 20 minutes:

A drive from Zurich to Lugano will take just under two hours.

The train ride from Lucerne to Lugano will now take 1 hour and 40 minutes.

A EuroCity train between Zurich and the northern Italian metropolis of Milan now takes 3 hours and 17 minutes.

That is fast, but still a long way from the promises that the Federal Council made on the Neat in the 1992 referendum vote. In the voting booklet at the time, it was said: “The NEAT gives us access to the European transport network of tomorrow. From Zurich, Milan can be reached in a good 2 hours, Paris and Frankfurt in 3 hours, London and Rome in just under 5 1/2 hours. ”

Miners celebrating the major breakthrough in 2016

Speeds of up to 250 km / h: the base tunnel in numbers

The Ceneri Base Tunnel runs from Camorino near Bellinzona to Vezia near Lugano. With a length of 15.4 kilometers, the tunnel is the third and third longest tunnel in the New Alpine Transversal (Neat) after the Gotthard (56 km) and Lötschberg Base Tunnels (34.6 km). For safety reasons, as with the Gotthard, two single-track tubes were built for the Ceneri, which led to a massive increase in costs. These are 40 meters apart and are connected to each other every 325 meters by 48 crosscuts. The overburden with mountains in the Ceneri zone is a maximum of 800 meters. The excavated material reached 7.9 million tons. 900 kilometers of copper cable, 10,500 kilometers of fiber optics, and 66.6 kilometers of track were laid.

Visiting the construction site of the tunnel in February 2017

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