The damage caused by the derailment of a freight train in the Gotthard Base Tunnel extends over a total of 8 km. SBB CEO Vincent Ducrot admitted to the media that the extent of the destruction is greater than initially thought. Repairs to the tunnel will take several months.
The tracks look as if they've been ripped apart by a rail wolf. The Swiss Transportation Safety Investigation Board (SUST) and the public prosecutor's office had to reopen the tunnel before the cleanup work could even begin. According to Ducrot, clarifying the cause of the accident takes priority over reopening the line in order to prevent future incidents of this kind.
SBB CEO V. Ducrot
"The incident has international repercussions," said the SBB CEO this afternoon. Freight traffic will likely not be able to use the intact parallel tunnel (eastern tunnel) again until August 23rd – passenger traffic will have to be diverted via the panoramic route until further notice. The reason for this is that while the parallel tunnel itself sustained no damage, overall safety cannot be adequately guaranteed if, for example, a passenger train were to come to a standstill and, in that event, people might have to be evacuated via a secondary tunnel that would then be unavailable. Lessons will be learned from the incident. A stroke of luck, Ducrot added: "There were no injuries in the (freight train) accident.".
Photos: SBB
At a speed of around 100 km/h, following the decisive derailment accident at the switch leading to the connecting tunnel, the coupling and compressed air connection to subsequent train sections – some of which were tank cars – broke. Rudolf Büchi, deputy head of infrastructure at SBB (Swiss Federal Railways), stated: "We have a very large number of concrete sleepers that were shattered." The majority of the train continued practically off-track. The locomotive and the front cars remained on the rails, but 14 others were not. Initially, reports indicated a single car, then 23 cars.
The train was traveling from Chiasso towards Basel. The carriages came from five destinations in Italy to Germany. In Chiasso, the carriages are reassembled on such occasions. The carriage and brake checks went smoothly. "Such checks are carried out in accordance with the regulations of the International Union of Railways (UIC)," said Isabelle Betschart Kühne, Head of Production at SBB Cargo.
In southern Ticino, an oncoming train driver had already noticed smoke coming from the derailed train. During a subsequent inspection in Bellinzona, a stuck brake was discovered and released on one of the freight cars. This was not the car that presumably derailed first. After the problem was resolved, the train was cleared to continue its journey. Between Bellinzona and the tunnel, the train passed through automatic inspection points again, up to 3 km before the tunnel, which – as previously reported – did not trigger any further alarms.
The wagons from five different Italian destinations had also undergone routine checks before their departure from Chiasso, where SBB Cargo assembles the wagons into new trains, and no irregularities were found. A total of 70 trains passing through the base tunnel are inspected by largely automated systems. The braking systems are also checked for any defects at the respective border crossings between Italy, Switzerland, and Germany.
The tracks in the Gotthard Base Tunnel are embedded in concrete sleepers, which in turn rest on rubberized, vibration-damping foundations. Büchi: "These are not standard tracks." SBB currently anticipates that both tunnel tubes will not be available for rail traffic again until early 2024.
SBB is working intensively to ensure that the undamaged eastern tunnel tube can be used for freight traffic as soon as possible. To this end, the damaged, permanently installed track-changing gate will be temporarily replaced with a mobile gate. The severely damaged track-changing gate is a custom-made component. Under normal operating conditions, the gate provides fire protection and separates the airflow between the two tunnel tubes.
Isabelle Betschart Kühne declined to comment on which company the freight wagon with the presumably defective wheelset ultimately belonged to, pending the release of reports from the SUST and the public prosecutor's office.
SBB Cargo is currently increasingly using the Lötschberg route as an alternative route, handling up to 30 percent of its freight volume. The Lötschberg-Simplon Tunnel was originally scheduled to close for maintenance work starting August 21st; however, the start of this work has now been postponed to August 23rd. The Brenner Pass will reopen on August 23rd after maintenance work is completed.
