Two Swiss trains derailed in storm Mathis

[whole diary]

[stuving]

Maybe we should not complain too much about a bit of rain and even flooding. From euronews:

Several people injured as two Swiss trains derail during storm
By Euronews  with AP  •  Updated: 31/03/2023 - 22:27

A train derailed in the Swiss town of Büren zum Hof, 20 kilometres north of Bern, 31 March, 2023.

Two regional trains in Switzerland derailed in separate incidents, injuring more than a dozen people Friday after a storm brought high winds and strong rains to the small Alpine nation, police said.

The incidents occurred at Lüscherz and Büren zum Hof, near the western city of Bern, police said.

In Büren zum Hof, a police spokeswoman said that 12 people — 9 adults and 3 children — were injured. Of those, one person's injuries were severe.

Television footage of the incident showed train carriages lying on their sides and the driver's cab embedded in a metal pole.

Police also said several people were injured in the derailment at Lüscherz, but further information about the number of the injured and the severity of their condition was not immediately available.

The transit agencies responsible for the trains, Aare Seeland Mobil and Regional Transit Bern-Solothurn, also confirmed the derailments on their respective websites. They noted that the affected rail routes were closed in response.

Judging by the video in that report, the train did indeed get rolled over onto its side by the wind! Maybe having trains of restricted height has its advantages.

[stuving]

There are other factors too, like these both (RBS Bern - Solothurn and the ASM^▸ (Assistant Station Master) Biel - Tauffelen) being metre-gauge, and with lots of stuff up in the roof because the floor is so low. Two pictures from nau.ch:

[broadgage]

I wonder if it would be worth converting these lines to standard gauge, keeping the loading gauge/vehicle dimensions as at present.
Full size rail vehicles on metre gauge tracks simply LOOK unstable, and in extreme winds can be ACTUALLY unstable.

[grahame]

I wonder if it would be worth converting these lines to standard gauge, keeping the loading gauge/vehicle dimensions as at present.
Full size rail vehicles on metre gauge tracks simply LOOK unstable, and in extreme winds can be ACTUALLY unstable.

That sounds like a 1st April idea - and yet I was struck by the yards at Regau on the Douro Valley line in Portugal last year, and suspect that the narrow gauge tracks were simple converted from there up the valley, leaving the old narrow gauge terminus and dual gauge yard abandoned, without even removing some of the locomotives that are rotting away there.