Switzerland Built a 57-km Railway Under the Alps — Here’s How

Deep beneath the Swiss Alps lies the Gotthard Base Tunnel—the world’s longest railway tunnel. Stretching approximately 57 kilometers between Erstfeld and Bodio, it carries passenger and freight trains through rock buried more than two kilometers beneath the mountains. In this documentary, we explore how engineers excavated the tunnel from multiple directions, controlled extreme heat and rock pressure, aligned separate headings with remarkable precision, and transformed two enormous underground tubes into a working railway. You’ll discover: • Why Switzerland built a flatter railway beneath the Alps • How tunnel-boring machines and controlled blasting were used • What happens when rock squeezes or bursts under extreme pressure • How ventilation, drainage and emergency passages work • Why the 2023 freight derailment caused such extensive disruption • How the tunnel helps move European freight from road to rail This video uses documentary footage, archival photographs, technical diagrams and factual engineering sources. Sources include official materials from AlpTransit Gotthard and Swiss Federal Railways. Subscribe to Engineering Under Pressure for documentaries about ambitious infrastructure, hidden engineering systems and the problems that appear when megaprojects meet the real world. #Engineering #Megaprojects #GotthardBaseTunnel #Switzerland #Railway #Infrastructure