GREAT TUNNEL.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 53, Issue 14, 27 October 1932, Page 6

GREAT TUNNEL.

THE FAMOUS ST. GOTHARD. FIFTY YEARS UNDER THE ALPS. Fifty years ago the St. Gotliard tunnel was opened and so cut in half the time required for the journey between Lucerne and Milan. All Switzerland has lately been celebrating the jubilee of this event, and at Airolo, the southern end! of the tunnel, a monument to “the victims of was unveiled by Dr. Motta, president of the Swiss Confederation. Fifty years ago the original sculpture was made by an artist of the Swiss canton of Ticino, Signor Vicenzo Vela, who made it as a decoration for the entrance of the tunnel. The monument now unveiled is a bronze casting of this. The victims of labour to whom the sculpture was dedicated were workmen who lost their lives during the construction of the tunnel. There were nearly 200 of them, many of them dying from the effects of poisonous gases dut to improper ventilation. The chief engineer of the work, M. Louis Vavre, did" not live to see his plans completed. He, too, died in the tunnel from heart failure. The St. Gotliard 1 pierces the Alps from Goeschenen in the canton of Uri to Airolo, and it is about nine and athird miles long, being second only to the Simplon among Alpine tunnels in point of length. The Simplon is a little over 12 miles long. The St. Gotliard tunnel "took more than nine years to build, and cost more than two and aquarter millions. The railway of which the tunnel is part is 151 miles long, and for the last 10 years it lias been electrified. It runs from Zurich to the Italian frontier at Ohiasso, with important connections at eacli end. The line passes through 80 tunnels, more than 28 miles of them in all, some climbing in spiral fashion inside the mountains.

The St. Gotliard is not the oldest of the great tunnels through the Alps ; The Mont Cenis, eight and a-lialf miles' long, was opened in 1871.