BORING AN ALPINE TUNNEL

Evening Star, Issue 14512, 2 November 1910, Page 10

BORING AN ALPINE TUNNEL

A £2,000,000 ENTERPRISE

[From Our Special Correspondext.] LONDON, September 23. Even the great Otira tunnel now being constructed in New Zealand is overshadowed by the magnitude of the latest, of the Alpine tunnels, tho Lotschberg. Tho cost of tho tunnel alone is estimated at £2,000,000. It is to be nine and a-quarter miles long, or three miles shorter than tho Simplon, which is twelve and a-quarter miles, and practically the longest tunnel in the world. The Simplon took eight years to build, whereas the Lotschberg is expected to bo finished in six. It has already been four years ,in construction, and will bo completely pierced next spring. Two journalists who have just returned from a visit to the Lotschberg tunnel give an interesting account of the work in tho London ‘ Evening News.’ One of them was a lady, and had some difficulty in gaining admission, for the printed Government regulations state that in no circumstances arc women and children to enter the tunnel works. Finally, after much persuasion tho chief engineer yielded, and said that if the lady would dress as a man and sign a paper declaring that if anything happened to her no one was to blame, he would consider her request for admission. This was done, and the adventurous lady journalist was allowed to enter the tunnel, clad in an Alpine climbing suit. For the first two miles, which are lit by electricity, the party wore carried in trucks filled with gravel. The engine pulling the long train of trucks was propelled not by steam or electricity, but by compressed air, which is used as much as possible in tho Lotschberg. Tho first two miles of the tunnel are practically complete. It is nearly nine yards wide by six_ yards one and a-half feet high. For this distance there is already a double line laid, so that trains can pass. —Chaos of Scaffolding.—

From hero for another mile they went through a chaos of scaffolding, so narrow that a man could hardly stand between the trucks and the supporting wooden pillars. Tho scaffolding is so low in places that they had to lie on tho gravel in the trucks. Most of the time they w’ere drenched by the water coming from above, sometimes in positive bursts. When they could go no further by train they descended into a pool of water; for about a mile and a-quarter they walked, mostly through streams of mud. It was a weird and strange experience. Save for their acetylene lamps, they were in pitch darkness—nearly four miles in tho bowels of tho earth with about 6,000 feet of earth above them. Breathing was not so difficult in this part, as a powerful electric air pump drives in nearly eighty cubic feet of air per second, and the water also helps to moisten the atmosphere and keep 'it pure. Tho workmen in tho tunnels wore standing almost knee-deep in water, either diverting tho streams or busy on tho scaffolding. In ono place they were building a canal for a rushing waterfall, which was coming down from the side of tho tunnel. Finally, after tramping for an hour on foot, tho party reached tho very end of tho tunnel. Tho journey was really difficult and dangerous, and tho workmen had to suspend their operations in loading tho blasted granite from above the scaffolding into tho trucks so as to avoid stones falling on tho visitors’ heads as they passed. Even after they left the water, mud, and gravel, and came out from tho scaffolding they had to encounter an atmosphere of dynamite smoke, which was exceedingly dry and difficult to breathe. Here there were hardly any signs of water, and the height of the tunnel was no more than about seven or eight feet. At tho inner *md were tho borers—tho vanguard of the tunnel workers. So trying are the conditions here that they never remain at work more than an hour and a-half at a time. There were about a dozen of them, with two revolving rock-drills worked by compressed air, as well as a “Brandt” water-sprayer, which at once lays the dust caused by the boring and prevents it from entering the lungs of the men. At the end of the hour and a-half’s drilling, dynamite and fuses are laid and fired, and after the explosion a loading gang removes tho debris in trucks, and so tho work goes on. —Full Share of Victims.— It has had its full share of victims. No fewer than twenty-five men were killed at ono time—before even tho first two miles had been bored. Many other smaller accidents have happened on this side, a few of them fatal. On tho other —tho Brigue side—there was also a great disaster soon after tho beginning of the work, when an avalanche killed twelve men. Tho first great disaster occurred when tho blasting suddenly let in tho waters of the rushing Kandor River, part of which flows under the mountain beneath which the Lotschborg tunnel is being bored. Tho engineers and geologists had miscalculated the depth of this river, and bonce tho disaster. Altogether there are about 4,000 Italians employed on tho two sides of the tunnel. When tho < tunnel is finished the line from Spioz to Kanderstog, and then through the Lotschborg and as far as Brigue on the other side, ■ whore the Simplon tunnel begins, will all have electric traction, so that no smoke will soil either tho air of the Alpine valleys or that of tho tunnel itself. The £2,000,000 which tho tunnel is to cost has been subscribed entirely by tho Bernese Swiss. Together with that for tho approach lines tho capital involved in tho whole undertaking will bo something like three and a-half millions sterling. When tho line is finished the journey between London and Milan or Brindisi via the east of France, Belfort, and Berne, will be shortened by about four or five hours.