https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matterhorn_Gotthard_Bahn
I’ve wondered about this for some time, maybe someone here knows? The Matterhorn Goothard railway links Zermatt to Brig (canton Valais), Andermatt (canton Uri) and Disentis/Muster (canton Grisons). In the 1980s, they built a railway tunnel below the Furka pass between Valais and Uri
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Furka_Pass
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Furka_Base_Tunnel
But since then, they never built another railway tunnel below the Oberalppass, which lies between Uri and Grisons/Graubünden https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oberalp_Pass
Why?
If you took that train one day, there are maps in the train of the railway, and it always stuck me as odd that one pass has a tunnel while the other hasn’t, while both are mountain passes where a tunnel would be useful
Matterhorn Gotthard Railway: why is there a railway tunnel below Furka pass (Valais – Uri), but not below Oberalp pass (Uri – Grisons)?
byu/GetOutBasel inSwitzerland
Posted by GetOutBasel
4 Comments
The rail line on the Oberalppass is open year-round, something that wasn’t possible on Furkapass. That’s probably the main reason.
Simple: the Oberalp Pass could be made safe for Winter operation. The 318 Million CHF price Tag was originally Set lower, and the Tunnel also has a branch to the south, for Strategic reasons.
Such costs were Not justifiable for the Oberalppass which would only have brought time savings.
There was an idea onece, to have a whole tunnel network at 1500m above sea level, with Furka, an extension from the furka tunnel to Ticino, the Grimsel tunnel and an Oberalp tunnel.
But the only one with an actual use was the Furka tunnel, and after it overrun the budget the other ideas where dropped.
The Furka line was never possible to make it save in winter. To many avalanche slopes, zo expensive.
The Oberalp line was prepared for all year operation in 1941.
Also,no one lives along the furka line, nor was there any ski operations there.
The Oberalp had Ski trains to Näschen since 1931 and gained much popularity
So quite a bit would be los in a tunnel
From the article on the Furka Base Tunnel:
>Prior to its construction, all traffic had to use the historic high-level route via the 1.8 km (1.1 mi) long [Furka Summit Tunnel](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Furka_Summit_Tunnel), which was only available seasonally due to the threat posed by heavy snowfalls.
The oberalp pass could be made ready to be used in winter:
>Die Strecke über den Oberalppass wurde wintersicher ausgebaut, der Furkapass wird mit einem Basistunnel unterquert.
[https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Furka-Oberalp-Bahn](https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Furka-Oberalp-Bahn)