Eduard Gruner

Eduard Gruner ( born June 2, 1905 in Basel, † May 21, 1984 ) was a Swiss engineer and traffic planner. He was the first who conceived a base tunnel through the Gotthard massif transport connection for rail and road.

Life

Eduard Gruner, was born in 1905 in Basel, the son of Heinrich Eduard Gruner and his wife Jenny, born core. After attending school in Basel he studied from 1925-29 Civil Engineering at the ETH Zurich and has since worked as an engineer, especially in foreign construction projects. From 1948, he was with his brother Georg Gruner ( b. 1908 ) partners after the death of his father renamed in Gruner Brothers company of the family.

Gruner Gotthard plans and the Porta Alpina

As early as the 1930s, the Basel engineer Gruner ideas for a transport connection through the Gotthard base tunnel for a road and rail as well as a combination of the two.

1947 Gruner explained in a technical article entitled journey through the Gotthard Base Tunnel in 2000, the visionary idea of a 50 -kilometer long Gotthard base tunnel of Amsteg to Biasca.

In his project idea, he also mentioned the Grisons station. He wrote: " Gently the train falls into the brakes and stops in the swarming Hall of the tunnel station Sedrun. From here the fashionable sports center can be reached in seven minutes in a comfortable elevator through the 830 meter deep shaft. This bring the ski fields at the front in hours Rhine near Basel, Zurich and Milan ( ... ) ».

As part of the design of the Gotthard Base Tunnel Alpina Gruner's idea of ​​an underground railway station in Sedrun was resumed under the name Porta.

Reference - building projects

In his work as an engineer Gruner worked among others with the following structures:

• Planning management in Basel for the second increase of the Aswan Dam, the Commission his father, Heinrich Eduard Gruner belonged.
• Building of the Bank for International Settlements in Basel,
• Trans- Iranian Railway.

He also worked for the UN for some time in the Human Rights Department.