Faulty train blocks longest overland rail tunnel

VISP – Officials say a train with a technical failure had to stop for 1½ hours in the world’s longest overland tunnel and was evacuated.

A spokesman for Switzerland’s Loetschberg Base Tunnel says the train halted in the morning inside the 34.6-kilometre rail link under the Alps.

Hans Martin Schaer said traffic remained blocked until shortly before midday. The blockage caused short delays through central Switzerland.

Schaer said Monday the train was stopped after it lost radio contact with Swiss rail operators. He said the problem was unrelated to the tunnel, and that all passengers had been ferried out on a substitute train.

The Loetschberg was inaugurated in 2007 after eight years of construction and USD 3.5 billion in costs. It trims travel between Germany and Italy by over an hour.

[AP / Expatica]