[MagnumOpus]

It cuts the Zürich-Milan journey time for passenger trains by about an hour (from 173 to 111 minutes) accelerating train trips from Germany/Switzerland to Italy significantly.

[piquadrat]

I heard numbers of 45 minutes less for Zurich-Milan. Maybe your number already includes the Ceneri Base Tunnel[1], to be opened in 2020?

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ceneri_Base_Tunnel

[MagnumOpus]

Indeed you are right - I got my number from 24heures.ch, and it is comparing the number before both tunnels vs. the time after both are open:

http://www.24heures.ch/suisse/Le-tunnel-de-base-du-Gothard-r...

[dalke]

Could you double-check the Zürich-Milan journey time?

The article says "... the journey time for travellers between Zurich and Milan will be reduced by an hour to two hours and 40 minutes."

I cross-checked that with http://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/switzerland-s-gotthard-tra... ("reducing the journey times between Zurich, Switzerland, and Milan, Italy, from just over four hours to two-and-a-half hours") and http://content.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,2026369... ("the journey time of three hours and 40 minutes from Zurich to Milan on the Cisalpino tilting train will be cut by an hour".)

You can see these all give a time of over 150 minutes using the tunnel, not 111 minutes. They all agree it's a savings of about an hour.

[planetjones]

I don't get this. Zurich is in Switzerland. I don't think even with this tunnel opening we will be getting from Zurich to Milan in under 2 hours... Are your numbers wrong?

Edit: we will be looking at journey times of about 170 minutes from Zurich to Milan AFTER the tunnel opens.

[harryf]

Yeah - I've done that journey and have in mind that it takes about 4 hours right now from Zürich to Milan by train (with various stops)

[lmm]

The TGV Paris-Lyon takes less than 2 hours to cover a substantially longer distance.

[vasile]

The terrain geography in Switzerland doesn't allow you to drive constantly with 300km/h, in France it's a different story

[chiph]

But the real goal is to get trucks off their roads. Hopefully this happens.

[MagnumOpus]

Self-correction: It cuts the Zürich-Lugano journey time from 173 to 111 minutes rather than Zürich-Milan (which still takes longer). Though it does cut journey times for the latter by an hour too.