Keeping the world's longest railroad tunnel safe
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- čas přidán 9. 10. 2022
- The Gotthard Base Tunnel in Switzerland is 57km long: and I think its greatest piece of safety equipment is nowhere near the tunnel itself.
■ Thanks to Swiss Federal Railways www.sbb.ch/ - drone filming near the tracks was specially approved with railway staff.
■ For tours into the Gotthard Tunnel and to the visitors' window, see Uri Tourism: www.uri.swiss/de/erleben/seil...
Camera: Alicja Pahl
Producer: Sebastian Capeda at Viven viven.ch
Editor: Michelle Martin / mrsmmartin
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Update, August 2023: despite all these precautions, a freight train did derail in the tunnel, after passing all the safety checks. No injuries, no fire, but a lot of infrastructure damage, and one tube of the tunnel will be closed for months. The investigation board will try to work out what happened: news.sbb.ch/medien/artikel/124073/reparatur-von-gotthard-basistunnel-wird-mehrere-monate-dauern
Unfortunate, I was just planning for a ride through this tunnel in October.
Came back to make sure it was the same tunnel I saw in the news. 😅
Yup, even with all the precautions in the world, chaos can happen. Even in Switzerland
I took a train through that tunnel a day before the accident, guess I got lucky ! Now while it’s closed the trip between Zurich and Ticino takes one to two hours longer
This derailed quickly!
Tom Scott really is the world’s most successful tourist
I genuinely wouldn’t be surprised if he’s on a net positive for his holidays
Don't forget sonny Side over at Best Food Review Show!
@@kestrels-in-the-sky you know how much money yters make ? he earns way more than we do with this holidays :D
@@Mt2pserverGplays well, technically Tom's holidays are his job.
@@Mt2pserverGplays I don’t think he makes as much as you think bc most of his videos are under 8 minutes which means they lack mid rolls and considering the prices of everything at the moment and the holidays he went on before being a CZcamsr that adds up
This was originally meant to be filmed in April 2020. Two and a half years later: I finally made it.
Hi!
I was here
“You can’t rush art.”
- Geri, Toy Story 2.
@AbhiTheGamerYT 🎃 no. he finally went and filmed it.
"Look, Mom! I made it" but real. I'd be excited too
The timing on this video is excellent, just 2 days ago a passenger train had to be stopped and towed out of the tunnel because of some malfunction. While there was never any danger for the passengers, the fact that they were stuck in the tunnel for 2 hours made the news in all of switzerland.
What @@Mr_Grimbley said. Our trains, if they even show up, tend to break in the middle of nowhere.
In Boston trains breaking downs underground is practically a weekly event
@@BobSaint what does mean „yours”?
Reminds me of that London bridge that malfunctioned the day that tom released a video about it
2 hours is very long. I work at another FF train in Switzerland, and We have a max starting time of 5 mins.
It was long because the electricity cable ( doesn't know the English word ) wrapped itslelf around the train...
Countries like Switzerland and Austria put public transport with trains to a next level. Always a pleasure to travel in this paradise of railway.
That and the nature in the alps is just unmatched in Europe
* laughs in Deutsche Bahn *
Austria? The ÖBB has canceled a lot of the smaller train connections. Because they are not profitable. Which is a BS reason. We need to fund the rail way for so many reasons even if it is not entirely profitable.
and yet they are deteroating and almost never on point anymore...
Its a paradise until you pay a kidney to get thru the country
It always amazes me how complicated it is to dig a hole in the ground
I think a hole in the ground is a bit of an understatement XD
@@kernelpanic2887 A big hole in the ground?
@@kernelpanic2887 Yet completely accurate. This hole in the ground just happens to be 57 km long and go under 2km of mountain.
at least if there are people to go through it, yes
Took almost 17 years to dig this one.
I love the no compromise attitude at the end there. "If your train looks slightly wrong, you WILL be stopped for inspection. If it is wrong, no, you're not moving until YOU solve the issue".
He really put "Gotthard", "longest", and "deepest" all together in the opening sentence of his video. A+ Tom!
Dirty minded
Where do you think Tolkien took inspiration for the Lord of the Rings? (I'm not even joking, look it up, it's fascinating!)
For rail/transport enthusiast, a mini documentary like this certainly makes them gotthard.
I found him. 😉
I'm glad someone else pointed this out so I know I'm not the only degenerate here.
I love the firefighting trains, but Switzerland has something even cooler: Regular fire trucks, but intermodal. They have retractable steel wheels that allow them to also drive over rails, which can be faster in mountainous regions, which Switzerland has a lot of.
That's the coolest thing I've heard in awhile
Firefighting trains are cooler imo. And I think many countries have fire trucks like that.
I wonder if Tom Scott knows he missed something really cool.
@@matthewnardin7304 he didn’t. The thing in Switzerland is that we not only have like 2-3 fire fighting trains like Germany, but a whole fleet of them spread across the country…😅
@@jimi272 There are 6 in total, they are larger, but the Swiss ones seem to be more sophisticated. I'll be able to visit one of them soon, though, looking forward to it!
this is like if the hyperloop was designed by competent people with appropriate safety features
so by railroad engineers
Can't have appropriate safety features in the kind of vacuum chamber the hyperloop would require.
Then again, we can't really have the kind of vacuum chamber the hyprloop would require at all, never mind features.
Wow how revolutionary! I thought it was just an old boring train, but it's actually a hyperloop system with pods attached with a single pod-dragging-machine!
Soo bloody true
+
This is Switzerland at its best. Safety and efficiency before everything else. Combine that with one of the most accurate timetables in the world, and you probably have one of the best train systems in the world.
Not one but the best IMO
No high speed yet tho. Japan has us beat on that 😅
Germanys rail system used to be as good as switzerlands up to the 80s. But then the "privatisation" was started and the Deutsche Bundesbahn became just the Deutsche Bahn - and since then, too many "saving money" occured and now the system is nowhere near as good as it was, regular delays, broken tech...
@@SwoleakhulTheBlind That depends on your definition of high speed. Here in Australia, with journeys that could be thousands of kilometres long, your train might reach 160kmh for a little while until buckled rails, level crossings, freight trains and twisting sections of track slow it down (and sometimes make your train stop). 900km Melbourne to Sydney takes 10 3/4 hours. You should appreciate what you've got, and having come out of the GBT at 250kmh I can assure you Swiss trains are plenty fast enough.
@@SwoleakhulTheBlind Japan has a lot of hills, I'll give them that. But I'd argue Switzerlands geography is even more challenging, making high speed even less viable. Also Switzerland is a lot smaller.
As an American I am just insanely jealous of this level of public transportation and safety infastructure.
But you got cars😂😂😂 and you're allowed to drive them to at least a third of their speed!
Tom, you continue to be one of You Tube's best educators.....5-10 minutes at a time.
TOMx
I want to buy his merchandise!
@@haroldnecmann7040 what? a red shirt =)
what, you haven't seen the masterpiece of unedited space garlic bread footage?
They're cool facts but nobody ever solves real problems by knowing random interesting facts. I'm still a big fan of Tom Scott but I wouldn't go so far as to call him an educator. He's more of an entertainer.
I have no idea how Tom has the timing of a magician when it comes to talking about things only for them to happen in the background.
I think the timing of the train passing was done intentionally.
At least in Germany there's an app to see where trains are. They might even have a screen in that very room.
@@ThePixel1983 What is that app? If you mean Zugradar, that was shut down over 5 years ago
the drone shots too... at 1:00 one train disappears into a tunnel as the other train emerges
Trains are very predictable. This one is definitely planned.
I love these informational mini-docs about various things Tom does. Did I wake up today wanting to know about a tunnel and it's safety features? I sure didn't, but now I know more than I did yesterday. And I love it. Thanks, Tom.
It’s absolutely surreal to see Tom in a place I’ve been to and mentioning names I hear every day. Godspeed SBB, and glad the Gotthard is getting some attention :)
I must say, you do have the ability to just nail the timing for your videos. Releasing a video about the safety measures of the Gotthard Base Tunnel just two days after a train got stuck in the tunnel - and all of this probably without even realising it.
Oh, and btw, as always: nice video about an interesting topic. As a Swiss and regular train passenger, I didn't even know about this tourist spot in the tunnel!
When Tom dropped the video about how "he held up miles of London traffic" or whatever the title was, it was also just a few days after Tower Bridge got stuck raised
Plot twist: Tom is sabotaging the attractions he visits so people hear about it, search for it, and find his video about it
Same
@@paul1234730 Manipulating reality's algorithm.
@@DaedalusYoung It wouldn't come as a surprise at all that Tom Scott has the power to manipulate reality.
As a Swiss person, I love how so many videos about Switzerland. It‘s truly a unique country
Salut à la Suisse!
A country that puts prevention of loss of life above the reaction to loss of life.
Not a lot of those.
So unique they even have their own language. Oh wait.
@@slartibartfast2649 Nei so speziell esch eusi Sprach, oder eher dialekt, ned. Aber Stolz druf simmer glich!
let's see who will understand.
@@PermireFabrica “Our language, or rather dialect, is not so special, no. But we’re proud of it all the same.”
That’s my best guess based on my German knowledge.
As a volunteer firefighter in the US, I noticed that they pack up with two cylinders at once, since they will be in an IDLH atmosphere for a while and will have trouble leaving it once there. I bet the heat in a tunnel fire gets crazy, so I wonder if their facepieces are rated for higher temps than your average facepiece (400 F).
At least, they will be rated in Celcius
As a volunteer firefighter in Switzerland I'd be rather surprised if they were 'cause the rest of the used PPE would not protect against such temperatures.
Just rewatched the video yesterday before the derailing in the tunnel happened. Interesting 🥴
I don't want to think about how much planning it took to time it so beautifully with the trains passing but I really appreciate it
6 cargo trains and 2 passenger trains per hour, so if you miss one, it's okay, there's another coming in less than 10 minutes
If there's one place in the world, it would be easy to do. It's Switzerland. The most punctual and frequent trains.
8 trains an hour, so it’s not really a matter of timing
@@townazier In Japan and maybe also some other countries in eastern asia the trains are more punctual than in Switzerland but Switzerland has still the most sucesfull european system.
@@europe_trains Punctuality is measured differently by each train operator, with Japan and Switzerland being one of the few ones that are actually strict and the two that sit at the very top without any other country even close.
You seem to have caught quite a special train in the outro drone shot, considering its a freight train that also carries some passenger cars from the Zürich s-Bahn if I’m not mistaken!
Probably just relocating empty cars.
Ive seen this in some other countries too, they do stop at stations and just align the passenger cars with the station, and the cargo cars will either be in front or behind the station, i think they do this only on tracks that have a limited thoughput like big tunnels etc, but im not sure
I was suprised too. Maybe the Zürich s-Bahn gets refurbished in Ticino?
@@DerBlaueRabe42 Yes they do some work in Bellinzona on the S-Bahn Trains
These where ic200 cars if I’m right.
I'm Swiss and I didn't know about the safety preventing scanning. Great job :-)
For those who have driven the Gotthard Road Tunnel, that’s a mere 17km to the Base Tunnel’s 57km. Those 17km felt like one of the longest white-knuckle drives of focus in my life - I can only imagine how much more relaxed the train ride must be. I need to go back!
Went through this bad boy on my way to Italy last month. 20 minutes of darkness, it was really something
this is amazing timing, there was an ‘accident’ in the Gotthard-Basistunnel just this Saturday, no one was hurt but they did have to evacuate 800 people
Technical problem was more appropriate 🙂
True my train was delayed by an hour😶
I'm from Switzerland and I'm always glad to see you make videos about our country. I'd never heard of this warning system before, so I guess I learned something new as well!
Amazing how much you fit into a 6 minute video. No filler.
I remember watching a doco called Big, Bigger, Biggest which covered this tunnel, it was incredibly fascinating.
I think it was about the Brenner-Base tunnel between Austria and Italy, which will be longer, once it is finished.
Just imagine there will be a tunnel with a length of 64km 🤯
@@Hanneskitz I just had a look for it, and it was from 2009 and was about Gotthard Base Tunnel.
@@Hanneskitz It won't really be longer though, only with a "trick" of also counting a splitoff that'll be built after.
Had a major geek out with this video & would have happily watched a much, much longer version. Fascinating & a you get the sense it's a true Swiss movement
lovely video! we swiss are very proud of our tunnels! our school was part of an educational program that allowed all the students to visit the construction site just before the final breakthrough. i felt like a dwarf in lord of the rings...
I travel that line twice a week.
This video has given me renewed appreciation for the incredible amount of effort and infrastructure that allows me to commute 30 minutes faster than I used to, all while being safer too.
Thank you for this highlight.
How dare you Sir, I am from that “middle of nowhere in Switzerland” Village, and I’ll have you know it’s actually a nice place.. - shakes fist at the sky -
All jokes aside, nice to see you around where I grew up
😂 I thought the same poor Leventina being called middle of nowhere
A lot of the best places are in the middle of nowhere! I don’t think it’s an insult :)
@@Agnes.Nutter I should really visit Tadfield sometime
You too?
2:17 Can we just take a minute for "the train driver tries to reboot the train system."
-Have you tried turning your train off and back on? 😂
It's exactly that, I work at one of these fire trains, and very often alarms are cancelled after drivers successfully reset the train 🚂🤣
Turning an locomotive on takes around 10-15 minutes. So it is isn't just "Turning it off and back on".
I was 8 or 9 when that horrible fire inside the road Gotthardtunnel happened. I was too young to really understand what has happened, but I still somehow felt the shock that hit the whole population. That accident changed forever how Switzerland approach tunnels safety measures and prevention.
Fun Fact: The longest underwater tunnel is the Seikan tunnel in Japan. Which is about 54km (33 miles).
And everything even close to the tunnel is spotlessly clean, meticulously organized and in perfect working order - because Switzerland.
"Maybe the load of the train has moved and doesn't respect, anymore, the necessary profile to enter the tunnel." is such a good sentence
On a side note: there are several firefighting trains in switzerland, mostly positioned on the largest railwaystations around the country.
If a fire breaks out near any traintrack, that would stop traintraffic, the firefighting train will come to help.
Greetings from switzerland.
17 to be exact 🙂😝
The Gotthard Tunnel is a really cool experience because you just go at the trains top speed for the whole length while seeing nothing. Feels kinda like what I imagine space would be like.
So it's like entering warp drive.
The ride is so smooth, after the train I was on shot into it all I could think for the next 20 minutes was, "Jeez, it's dark." I wasn't paying attention and hadn't actually realised we were going through the GBT. Then it was suddenly daylight again.
I used to work at a railway school. I was train-ed very well.
Ba dum tss 🥁
Love the amount of effort, engineering and incident prevention has gone into the GBT. (As a bit of a Swiss railways nerd this video especially appealed to me). Another cracking video Tom, glad you finally made it!
Hi, I have a question for a Swiss railways nerd. Are there more of these checkpoints he showed at the end or is this one specifically only for the Gotthard?
@@sarahrichter4185 there are several across the whole country :)
I'm always just so impressed by the quality of the footage Tom gets, there's appropriate, interesting, contextualising B roll for every sentence uttered. Must be a huge amount of work but it makes a really excellent result.
My favorite thing about Tom Scott videos is that I always learn some amazing things about things I never knew existed and feel good after having it explained to me.
I just love these videos about things you may never have noticed otherwise.
If they could just be a little longer :)
Tom is always going in interesting places we never dream of
Agreed 😅
True
idk i always dream of gotthard
Some of us do dream of them. I've been a fan of the Gotthard base tunnel since before it opened. It's featured in all those silly discovery style giant construction shows. I'd totally want to visit it on a trip to the area.
That sensor gantry has probably also prevented many burning fright cars from entering the tunnel as sometimes shipments involving things like lithium-ion batteries can spontaneously combust because of some batteries being defective from the factory.
As a railfan, I find this to be fascinating. Thanks for sharing Tom!
2:00 I am still trying to imagine a pane of glass thicker than the **diameter** of my drinking glass.
I admit that I sniggered at "The Got Hard Base Tunnel"
Longest and deepest in the world. XD
I can just imagine some random guy on the train looking out the window and seeing Tom Scott just stood there as he runs past at 200km/h. He'd have the worst time convincing his friends...
This is fasinating. Swiss rail system is really one of the most advanced in the world!
I love that scanning equipment. Alstom have a similar system at the Central Rivers Depot near Burton. It scans the trains coming into the maintenance depot and can inspect, on the move, things like brake lining wear before the train enters the maintenance sheds.
funnily enough just this week a train had an electrical issue and was stuck in the tunnel. The whole evacuation procedure had to be applied and the passengers left the tunnel safely.
I come from few km south of the Gotthard, saw the tunnel being built, and travelled through it many times. Turns out, I knew nothing about that gantry, super interesting. Hope you enjoyed Ticino!
This is so marvelous. The team running this has such a cool job!
I really want to go there sometime to film for myself because i like trains, railways and mountains.
good luck!
@@phitc4242 we're quite open to open days and visits 😁
Tom's tunnel video is certainly not 'boring'...
Ha ha hahaha
Hah…
Switzerland is always on a different level
So weird seeing you film in switzerland! I sometimes forget how lucky we are to life in such a beautyful country.
I work as test engineer for train manufacturer.
For testruns I drove through the tunnel up to 6 times a day. For weeks.
After 3 time it gets old. When ever I can, I take the old track trough the old
Tunnel. Is still spectacular.
It is always important to avoid the humiliation to get towed by the Rettungszug.
I luckily never happens to me.
Is the original Gotthard Tunnel way above it still in commercial use?
@@rustysworldofentertainment850 Yes for some local trains and once per hour the Treno Gottardo.
Worth the wait Tom! Fascinating work
So proud of how my home country plans things.
I’m so happy you made a video in my country!!!
This is absolutely fascinating, and its great to see these systems so thoroughly planned
Genuinely admire the commitment to doing things properly here.
We are very fortunate to have such a good rail system in Switzerland.
“To stop problems before they start” i really wish the world could understand that and act on it
And just two days ago a train got stuck, but no one got hurt luckily, greetings from 😁
This was SUPER interesting. I would really appreciate a much longer, documentary level presentation on the same subject.. Thanks!
Switzerland is the Japan of Europe. Every single detail thought of, tried and tested to keep trains and people as safe as possible.
If you drive an old car this tunnel comes in clutch in winter. It's so cozy warm inside, driving through is like a healing tunnel after your feet and hands have been freezing all that time. 😂
wow 57km is such a long distance for staying underground when you think about it
At the end of the day you often don't even notice except when you get out of it.
Train inspection devices are all over most modern rail systems. Fun fact, they talk to the train engineers via radio.
Yes, in the USA they do that. Mostwhere else they are reporting to the traffic control centres.
canadian thanksgiving AND a tom scott video??? this is the best day ever
There is not only one "fire fighting train" at each side of the Gotthart-Tunnel, but more than a dozen of them all around the country.
It’s actually quite fascinating to see how much science and thought goes into this ❤
I went through it twice a month ago! It's so cool to see you make so many videos in my small homecountry!
Getting a new Tom Scott video makes Mondays a little less painful. Thanks Tom
Standing in the "booth" actually looks like a lot of fun, all the excitement of a train bearing down on you with none of the risk.
Tom Scott videos are like mini school trips
i pass through it every weekend and the difference it makes is insane, Lugano Zurich in 1:58 h and before it was 2:26h, next level engineering
Defect Detectors (which that Gantry is one of) are the real unsung heroes of the rail networks all over the globe.
Hope you enjoyed your stay in Switzerland, Tom! Love to see you post videos of Switzerland, sometimes I even learn new things of Switzerland and I love that!❤🇨🇭
This is so cool! I use the train tunnel to train in Zurich 3 times a week
Switzerland is just the railway paradise of the world.
Actually Japan is the railway paradise and this is coming from a local.
Fabulous video. Wish it was longer. This just highlights the vapourware that is hyperloop with zero fire suppression systems compared to the real world.
I’ve been through a Swiss tunnel driving a coach, always amused me watching the temperature rise to 40+ on the passenger display, then dropping by 30 degrees after you exit.
I’m convinced Switzerland was created specifically for Tom Scott
Tom always look so excited when he talks about trains
I travel in that tunnel twice a week, it really reduced the time needed to go from southern Switzerland to Zurich
I rode through the tunnel twice (once each direction) and this video reinforces what an engineering marvel it is.
really cool stuff. It's really cool to see the time, effect, and though put into such a complex system like this.
An incident happened today in this tunnel nice timing. A train got stuck for 6 hours inside.
Looks like I need to go back to Switzerland again! I am so doing that tunnel tour one day.
One of the tunnels in the Kurobe rail system in Japan is so close to lava pockets that it has to be water cooled, and petrol-driven vehicles are banned in there. When built, the rock surfaces were hotter than 100 °C.
You can apply for a yearly lottery where the winners get to ride a train through that tunnel.
The Kurobe network was built to allow the construction of several hydroelectric plants in the 60s. It has many interesting quirks and solutions to local problems. In the summertime, tourist trains run from Unazuki Onsen up the Kurobe Gorge to the top station, but the rest of the network is closed to the public. Well worth a visit.
Switzerland is a rail fan paradise; the railways are so organized it's unlike anything else on the planet.
I live in the Netherlands - which has one of the best railway networks already - and the difference compared to Switzerland is simply astounding: their trains run smoother, travel faster, and are more timely than anything I've seen at home!
Wish we had your bicycle infrastructure though! NotJustBikes rules :)
Hi Tom, I am a big fan of yours. I am orginally from Ticino and one of my ancestors built that tunnel. So happy you made a video about it :)
Yay!
Tom has been to Switzerland again!
It's amazing how much information you impart in a short time! Thankyou.