Switzerland breaks records: from the steepest railway to the largest igloo
The incline of the steepest point on the funicular railway, in the village of Stuz, is 110%, or about 47 degrees. KEYSTONE/
KEYSTONE / URS FLUEELERLate last March, a Swiss train set a new world record when it traveled nearly 3,000 kilometers without having to refuel. This is not unusual for Switzerland, as it is home to many other technological records. Here are some of the most impressive and surprising ones.
Many of Switzerland's world records are tied to its terrain, specifically its mountains. Swiss engineering capabilities have been demonstrated to overcome the difficulties of this stubborn nature, whether by constructing roads through its twisties or on its high heights. In 2017, It was opened in the village of Shtos Stoos, central Switzerland, the steepest railway in the world, with a maximum incline of 110%, i.e. an incline of approximately 47 degrees. The strange thing is that the barrel-shaped carriages rotate so that the surface of their seats remains flat.
Only 25 kilometers away, on the opposite shore of the magnificently beautiful Lake Lucerne, is the Stanserhorn mountain, home to the Cabrio cable car (External link), which is the first cable car in the world with cabins consisting of two floors and an open roof... Riding it is a breathtaking adventure!
The double-decker cabrio with open deck faces up to the Stanzarhorn mountain, overlooking Lake Lucerne. KEYSTONE KEYSTONE
In Zermatt, the mountainous tourist resort in western Switzerland, there is the highest three-wire cable car system in the world. Here, anyone who is afraid of heights should be careful. This system connects the Trockener Steg peak, at an altitude of 2,939 metres, and the Klein Matterhorn, at an altitude of 3,883 metres. During the nine-minute flight, the passenger cabins suspended by cables hang at a height of approximately 198 metres. The system includes four compartments, all with transparent floors, through which the eye can enjoy the stunning views below.
Zermatt also has the largest domed hut made of snow External link, with an internal diameter of 12.9 meters and a height of 10.6 metres. The construction of the igloo in 2016 required three full weeks and 18 construction workers. It was created at the time as part of the twentieth anniversary of the Igloo Dor External link (Igloo Village). I had spent a night in the hotel in question, a few years ago (when I was stuck in Zermatt and couldn't leave due to a landslide, but that's another story). The Igloo Dorf was absolutely stunning, with beautiful ice sculptures all over it, but the room was very cold. However, staying at the hotel was an experience I will never forget!
Also in the canton of Valais is another imposing landmark, the Grande-Dixens Dam, which is 285 meters high. It is the highest gravity dam (external link)* in the world, the seventh highest dam in the world (external link), and the highest in Europe, regardless of the types of dams.
In the canton of Ticino, there is the Verzasca Dam (officially known as the Contra Dam), which entered the Guinness Book of World Records (external link) for being “the highest structure for bungee jumping that appeared in a movie.” At the beginning of the 1995 film GoldenEye, a breathtaking shot is shown when James Bond, or rather his stand-in actor Wayne Michaels, jumps from the 220-meter-high dam structure.
When it comes to building direct roads through the mountains, Switzerland is far ahead of others. It contains the Gotthard Base Tunnel, which is the longest iron tunnel in the world. The construction of this tunnel took 17 years, and it was officially opened in 2016. It consists of two tunnels, one for freight trains and the other for transporting passengers, both with one line and a length of 57.1 kilometers. The two tunnels connect the village of Erstfeld in the canton of Uri and the village of Budio in the canton of Ticino. The Gotthard Main Tunnel is also the deepest steel tunnel in the world, with a maximum depth of 2,450 metres, a depth comparable to the deepest mines on Earth. This tunnel has no ventilation system, as the temperature inside reaches 46 degrees Celsius.
Gotthard's primary tunnel
?Why is the Gotthard core tunnel so important
Another Swiss tunnel that broke records is the famous Large Hadron Collider (LHC) tunnel at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), near Geneva. The collider, a ring tunnel with a diameter of 27 kilometers, has set many records in the field of physics. As it is the most powerful particle accelerator in the world, and has the highest temperature resulting from human activities in the world. External link. In 2012, the scientific team at the collider announced that temperatures exceeding five trillion kelvins were recorded, and perhaps reaching 5.5 trillion kelvins.
Another collider is expected to outperform the LHC, the future Ring Collider. CERN member states plan to build a 90-kilometre circular tunnel. The final decision on the project will be issued after 2028.
One of the latest world records recorded with Swiss participation is the record announced on March 20 of this year, when a train powered by hydrogen fuel cells, manufactured by the Swiss company Stadler, covered a distance of 2,803 kilometers without the need to refuel or recharge. The record flight, which took 46 hours, took place at a test center in the US state of Colorado. This is the second time that Stadler has entered the Guinness Book of World Records. In 2021, a battery-powered train set the record for the longest trip without recharging, when it traveled 224 kilometers on a single charge.
This list of Swiss records would not be complete without mentioning the students’ achievement achieved last year. The result was an accelerated electric car From 0 to 100 kilometers per hour in 0.956 seconds, a world record for acceleration for a hand-built racing car.
Apparently, hydrogen is the preferred element among the leading elite. Here is the Swiss adventurer Bertrand Piccard, who in 2016, accompanied by his assistant Andre Borschberg, completed the first circumnavigation of the world in a solar-powered plane, announcing a plan to circumnavigate the world again in 2028. This time, Piccard hopes to complete the journey in just nine days on board a solar-powered plane. With hydrogen. The Swiss adventurer had already set a world record, when he and Brian Jones covered the “longest distance on a hot air balloon (external link)” (40,814 kilometres).
Picard comes from a family famous for breaking records, as his ancestors reached depths and heights never trodden by human feet.
The Picard family... from the highest elevation above sea level to its deepest point
This content was published on May 24, 2010 In fact, Bertrand Picard has brought all the honors to his family name. In 1999, he succeeded in his third attempt, along with co-pilot Brian Jones, to circumnavigate the globe without stopping in a hot air balloon. And I started…
In 1931, his grandfather Auguste Picard, the inspiration for the Belgian cartoonist Hergé when he created the character of Professor Calculus, accompanied by Paul Kepfer, ascended to a height of 15.7 kilometers on board a hydrogen balloon, to become the first to enter the stratosphere and witness the curvature of the Earth’s surface. Three years later, twins Jean, Auguste's brother, and his wife, Ginette, ascended aboard a hydrogen balloon to an altitude of approximately 18 kilometers, and Ginette became the first women to enter the stratosphere.
Auguste's son (and Bertrand Piccard's father), Jacques, became an oceanographer and engineer, and was one of the first to explore and probe the unknown depths of the ocean. In 1960, Jack, accompanied by Don Walsh, a diver in the US Navy, reached a depth of about 10,916 meters on board the submarine Trieste II, setting the record for diving to the deepest point inside a manned submarine. Their achievement remained an undisputed record until 2019.
If Bertrand Piccard's plan to travel on a hydrogen-powered plane succeeds, he and his team may celebrate by opening the largest bottle of wine in the world (external link), a 4.17-meter-high bottle that was made in 2014 at the request of a Swiss car importer to celebrate the opening of a new branch of his company. Although the bottle theoretically holds 3,094 liters (4,125 standard bottles of wine), it is not yet clear whether it actually contains wine.
Source: websites