Tunnelling of the Saint Gotthard – When the workers meet

The first Gotthard Tunnel, a 15-km-long double-track railway tunnel, was built between 1872 and 1881, a thousand meters lower than the Alpine pass of the same name (altitude: 2,108 m). It connects two Swiss cantons, Uri and Ticino. Since December 2016, a new Gotthard Tunnel, a record 57 km long, has been in service. This engraving, published in 1880, shows the moment of the meeting, on Saturday, February 28, 1880, at 6:45 p.m., between workers from the German and French teams, after seven years and five months of hard work. An emotional moment on this very dramatic construction site where 307 workers died in accidents and 900 also suffered from diseases such as silicosis and hookworm infection.