[ajb]

It's for freight, though, and if I understand it correctly, the force of the upward movement is automatically converted to horizontal movement by the pulley/rail system. So there's potentially no need for anyone to be on the boat as it transits the tunnel.

Not that that this looks practical - the tunnels would be huge, just for starters.

[Animats]

Not that huge. This thing seems to have been scaled for narrowboats, like the old British canal system. Those have some tunnels, just barely big enough for the boats. Here's the longest canal tunnel in the UK.[1]

That was built in 1803. The project in the article was proposed in 1907, which was way late to be getting into narrowboat canals. Railroads, both ordinary and cogwheel, were working just fine in Swizerland by then.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ETwZuu9yZ0

[ajb]

Wow yeah narrowboats were not the cutting edge of haulage in 1907.

Interesting about the Stand edge tunnel. I admit, I'm not that keen to go through it