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The Dream of an Alpine Waterway
Pietro Caminada had a simple idea to turn the inconceivable into reality: huge cargo ships crossing the Alps without using self-propulsion. The stroke of genius by the engineer with Graubünden roots was a viable project – at least he thought so.
ETH engineer Rudolf Gelpke, an authority on the subject, had proven in 1903 with a screw steamer that the Rhine was navigable as far as Basel and he advocated a Rhine-Gotthard waterway with ports in Flüelen and Biasca, where the freight could be transferred to and from the Gotthard railway. “A series of lock chambers of varying lengths and gradients depending on the slope follows the contours of the terrain like the tracks of a train.” There was not one word of doubt regarding technical feasibility, cost or even the point of transalpine shipping. “And up go the much vaunted lock chambers, at least on paper for now, from San Giacomo valley up to Isola, 1,247m above sea level.” The project was, argued Gelpke, economically a non-starter in every way, referring to it as a “technical fantasy”.
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