Porta Alpina - let us be brave!

At the beginning I thought that's just another stupid idea: the tallest building of the world in the middle of the alps...
But end of june my father convinced me to go for a hike in the mountains over the weekend and to have a look at the construction site of the worlds longest tunnel Gotthard in Sedrun. (http://www.alptransit.ch/pages/e/). After an introduction at the visitor centre (http://www.basistunnel.ch/) we all got our helmets and orange jackets as well as a radio and went by train into the tunnel where they are digging the biggest hole into the mountains ever.

My father waiting for the train into the mountain

The construction site was impressive but what stayed more prominent in my memories was the discussion we had with our guide about the "Porta Alpina" (http://www.visiun-porta-alpina.ch).
To build the 153km of tunnel in a reasonable time, they "attack" the mountain from different construction sites. About in the middle of the tunnel is Sedrun, where a tunnel first goes 990m horizontal into the mountain and afterwards elevators bring the workers 800m down. The idea of some people is to make a train stop in the middle of the tunnel and build in proper elevators for visitors and tourists. This investment would cost about chf 50millions (compared to chf 10billions of the tunnel) and the elevators would become the tallest building of the world:

People complain about the costs of those elevators and they think not enough tourists would use the train to visit the alps to run the porta alpina cost-effective.

For me trains are the future. And visions important. Let's be brave. For once!