Collector's item: Tunnel fires

With the controversy surrounding the reopening of the St. Gotthard Tunnel after a major fire in autumn 2001, Swiss Re takes a look back at the first fire in Swiss alpine rail-tunnel history.

On 24 October 2001, a worst case scenario became reality. Fire broke out in the St. Gotthard Tunnel, the longest and most important tunnel in the Central Alps. Pictures of thick black smoke billowing out of the entrance of a modern traffic tunnel covered the front pages, recalling the photos we had seen two years before when there was a major fire in the Mont Blanc Tunnel.

The sole remaining link was by rail. That, at least, was safe: for there has never been a devastating fire catastrophe in any rail tunnel in the Alps.

Yet alpine rail-tunnel history started with a major fire. It took place in late May 1857, in the Hauenstein Tunnel near Olten in central Switzerland. The tunnel, the largest tunnel in the transportation history of mid-19th century Europe, was close to completion.

The industrialised world was in the grip of railway fever at the time. In Germany, trains were travelling between Hamburg and Berlin, Lübeck and Pforzheim. In the US, work was being carried out at a frenzied pace across wide stretches of open prairie. By 1860, a rail network of 49,000 kilometres had been constructed.

Placing its faith in progress, Switzerland, too, showed itself to be open to new ideas. From small beginnings in 1849, with the first "Spanisch-Brötli" train chugging its way between Zurich and Baden, the rail engineers already had their sights set on the future. Helical tunnels and cog-wheel technology were to be used to overcome steep inclines. The number of alpine rail projects shot up markedly.

The tunnel through the upper Hauenstein in the Jura Alps was seen as an exemplary test case. Penetration of the Swiss alpine massif (be it via Splügen, Gotthard or Simplon) had to be allocated top priority, if the country wasn't to be overtaken by Austria or France in the battle for the markets of Northern Italy.

In the race against time, caution was not the first priority. Building regulations and safety measures were awarded only minor importance in the fight to build the fastest transportation links.

The inevitable happened. Shortly before making the final breakthrough, the tunnel’s wooden shuttering caught fire. Thirty-one construction workers were trapped and overcome by smoke. Eleven died trying to rescue those trapped inside.

A tunnel fire is a terrible scenario which, unfortunately, is not just a thing of the past. In the spring of 1999, thirty-nine people perished in the Mont Blanc Tunnel blaze. The most important road through the Alps between Geneva and the Po Valley has just recently been reopened to traffic.

"Collector's Items" originate from Knowledge & Information Management and the Company Archive at Swiss Re.