Switzerland sets records for trains and patents

I love travelling by train. So I couldn't help noticing this news article about the world's longest passenger train. The record was recently set in Switzerland by 1.9km long train, with 100 coaches.

I discovered that Switzerland also has the world's longest and deepest rail tunnel. The Gotthard Tunnel, opened in 2016, is 57 km long. By comparison, the channel tunnel, between the UK and France, is 50.5 km.

Switzerland has also been setting records in patents. According to the EPO's Patent Index 2021, published on 5 April 2022, in the last calendar year Switzerland filed more European patent applications per capita than any other country in the world, and by a significant margin. Switzerland filed 968 applications per million inhabitants, which was almost twice as many as the next nearest country.

Patents are intended to encourage and reward innovation, so it is no surprise to see a country breaking records in both engineering and in the filing of patent applications.