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Comment by mongol | Hacker News Reader

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mongol·

The Alps.

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The planned routes do not go through the alps, they go around them, mainly in the flat lands.

https://www.cst.ch/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/2015_10_vek_Ka...

There are many existing trains in Switzerland, even high speed ones. Yet those trains are largely above ground. (I can't find any statistics quickly).

This is supposed to be a low speed service - 30km/h - so they could meander around mountains to a large extent. Am I misreading that this is supposed to be entirely underground?

The surface should be reserved for people. Surface land is rare and can be better utilized for housing, farms, parks, bike paths, solar.

There's plenty of space underground and sure it's a higher one-time cost, but the conserving the surface for people is probably worthwhile.

Indeed. The article talks about projected reduction of freight on roads of 40%.

I wonder about induced demand. Presumably total freight volumes will not change drastically in response to the availability of this new system, in which case one could expect road traffic reductions to be stable.

The quieter roads may well induce more personal transportation, but then with Switzerland’s already very good passenger rail connections, maybe not.

Seems like a win all round.

This will not be in the mountainous region of Switzerland. It's in the north where there are 120/kmh highways. Mostly rolling hills.

Well if you think flat region of Switzerland exists please check the map again. Even the northern part which is not "in" the Alps is fairly mountainous, with hills and all kinds of natural obstacles

Not totally true, the train rides here have lots of tunnels, especially the 57 kilometer long Gotthard tunnel.

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