Simplon Tunnel

Simplon Tunnel and Lötschberg Railway celebrate centenary

At 19.8 kilometers, the Simplon Tunnel, between Switzerland and Italy, was for many years the longest mountain tunnel in the world. The Simplon Tunnel was built in two stages, from 1898 to 1905 and from 1912 to 1921. This year marks the centenary of its inauguration, and Swiss Post is issuing a special stamp in honor of the occasion.

Simplon Tunnel

This railway project was preceded by years of protracted discussions about routes and financing, until the signing of an international treaty with Italy in 1895 finally secured the go-ahead. The tunnel project provided for two parallel single-track tunnels, as this offered greater security than the usual twin-track tunnels of the day. However, initially just one tunnel was built and put into service. The tunnel was finally pierced in 1905.
In 1912, growing traffic volumes prompted Swiss Railways to develop the emergency tunnel into a second operational tunnel, as planned in the original project. This work, which was interrupted by the First World War, finally culminated in the opening of the second tunnel in 1922.

Lötschberg Railway

When the Gotthard Railway opened in 1882, Canton Berne found itself cut off from the main North-South traffic route. However, with its agriculture-based economy, it could not afford to be sidelined in this way, so on 27 July 1906, the Berne-Lötschberg-Simplon (BLS) was founded. On 19 June 1913, the Lötschberg Railway went into operation. 1992 saw the inauguration of the expanded Lötschberg line with its double track. And as from 2001, a roll-on roll-off system for transporting trucks by train from Germany via the Lötschberg to Italy, has made a major contribution to transferring heavy-goods transit traffic from the roads to the railway.

Stamps in detail

Issue: Switzerland, 7 March 2006
Print: offset by Austrian State Printing Office, Vienna
Stamp size: 33 x 28 mm
Perforation: 13,75
Design: Marc Weller, Berne

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