If there is a country which cannot be said not to focus on the railway system, this is Switzerland, which not only invests money in it but also makes up for the obstacles of the territory and the needs of citizens: here, in fact, everyone takes the train (it is the first country in the world in proportion of train travelers and also in the kilometers traveled by a train on a track in a day, ahead of Japan and Holland), passes everywhere and everyone lives together.
Hence, while in other parts beyond the Alps building infrastructure becomes a problem, in the country of chocolate and cheese they prefer to cut the bull's head: dig very long tunnels and encourage operators to use rails and silenced brakes, to shorten distances and respect the environment and the acoustic impact on people's lives, which in Switzerland – together with punctuality – is the first rule of civil coexistence.
To take up the challenge is AlpTransit, the Swiss high-speed railway project which together with the Federal Office of Transport and the public company SBB (Swiss Federal Railways) he demonstrated a punctuality that later resulted in the desire to be ahead of the times, so that the new Gotthard base tunnel, the one - so to speak - which will connect Milan and Zurich in just 3 hours instead of the current 4 hours and 20 on a route of almost 300 km that cannot be more steep, it will be ready as early as May 27, 2016, a few months ahead of the initial schedule.
And so already in 2016, awaiting the works for the Monte Ceneri tunnel (the one between Bellinzona and Lugano) which will be completed three years later, 50 to 80 passenger trains and between 220 and 260 freight trains will travel the new Gotthard per day, at speeds of 250 and 160 km per hour respectively, going above all to strengthen and make more and more efficient the most important commercial axis in Europe, that Corridor 1 which connects Rotterdam to Genoa and which, passing through the Swiss country, currently encounters the greatest difficulties.
A colossal work, therefore, which will benefit Switzerland and all of Europe, and which only with regard to the Gotthard base tunnel it will have cost almost 10 billion Swiss francs, or just over 8 billion euros. But AlpTransit, which takes care of this construction site and that of Lötschberg (on the Sempione axis), has thought of everything: after all, the Switzerland is the 1st railway country in Europe in terms of cost/performance ahead of France, while Italy does worse than the Czech Republic. And therefore the funds are already perfectly found: 64% comes from the motorway toll, 23% from the petrol tax and 13% from the value added tax, in order to allocate the money also for the Ceneri base tunnel (2,5 billion Swiss francs).
However, despite these great works – they are also changing the face of the landscape (the Gotthard debris exceeds 28 million tons, it would take a train from Zurich to Chicago to evacuate it), given that two thirds of them are placed on mountains or poured into lakes to form artificial islands – they have been regularly voted by 21 out of 23 cantons in a referendum, there is always someone to whom the tracks, when they are not inside a tunnel, pass under the house or on agricultural land.
The challenge taken up by AlpTransit is thus also to defeat the Nimby effect (“not in my back yard”). As? By budgeting 1,85 billion Swiss francs for the noise remediation of the rails, which together with anti-noise barriers and insulating windows in homes are the three priorities for reducing noise pollution. Currently, 100% of SBB trains are already silenced, while among private carriers we are at 65%, with the stated goal of reaching 2020% of trains passing through Swiss territory by 100, thus making it mandatory and leaving the "hot potato" to Germany, a country from which 70% of foreign freight trains in Switzerland originate and which is Europe's leading exporter, but which is still behind on this front.
The reason is very simple: to do everything before and better than others, the Swiss government offers incentives to tractor operators. Which Germany also does, but with maximum bonus limits. On the other hand, there are none in the Swiss cantons: it is an unlimited question of 2 cents of francs for the adjustment of each axle (each wagon has four) and for each kilometer travelled, in the case of iron or synthetic braking systems, and 3 cents for disc brakes, for which, however, there is still no homologation.
Without getting too technical, these are systems patented by the EU whose business has so far been collected only by Switzerland and by companies such as Josef Meyer, a leader in the sector which invoices around 30 million francs a year to replace the systems braking. For those of the latest generation, the so-called LL-Blocks, i.e. those with a synthetic composition that would like to reduce the acoustic impact on the population by two thirds, 2.400 francs per wagon are needed, of which the Swiss federal government reimburses 300 francs for every 24 km traveled (the ones needed to cross the country), i.e. 1%. In 100 trips, i.e. 16 per year within the next 6, when it becomes mandatory, the new braking system will therefore be free.
