tail to the escue
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pine bores to save time and money
aria's biggest bore: A contractors vehicle on one of the special roads which have been built to carry construction traffic engaged the Arlberg. Tunnel project. This 14km road tunnel will open in 9 to eliminate the present slow route over the 1800m pass. Picture ws one of the access points to the tunnel workings; initially only tunnel will be completed while the second portal (foreground) only Is to a short section of blind tunnel.
:EN avalanche damage to a I bridge on the northern roaches to the St Gotthard s required the imposition of 3-ton limit, haulage rations on this strategic tk route to the southern t of Switzerland were .ously affected. For some e after the introduction of weight restriction a local anisation posted a light road Aar near the bridge so. that wbar combinations at least— the Swiss maximum gcw 28 tons—could be split for crossing.
low that heavy tourist traffic 1 the need for one-way rking are causing long delays commercial vehicle traffic Cantonal authorities have .ceeded in arranging an :mative route for maximumight combinations and iculated vehicles in particular. th immediate effect, a gyback rail shuttle over the rm (27-mile) sector between afeld and Airolo will allow :rators to continue the use the Gotthard route and to /hate lengthy detours over ier alpine passes. The usual ght limits for piggyback ffic apply and this may went some vehicles from using the facility. Ironically the emergency measures coincide with the opening of another 6km (2.5-mile) section of St Gotthard motorway which has so far taken over seven years to build. The new Reuss Valley road—which ends short of the restricted bridge—is part of the N2 scheme which, when linked up with the St Gotthard road tunnel now under construction, will provide a continuous motorway across Switzerland from the German to the Italian frontier.
Another alpine tunnel scheme of similar magnitude will make the Arlberg road a new fast crossing into Austria when work is completed on the 14km (9-mile) bore in 1979.
The new Arlberg toll tunnel at an altitude of around
1200m will, it is claimed, offer fuel savings of up to 70 per cent for maximum-weight drawbar combinations which now have to climb to almost 1800m to cross the pass. During the winter months the existing route may be closed to traffic for a total of up to 30 days despite strategically placed snow clearing teams with high-powered equipment.