Switzerland - railway services, facilities, improvements and incidents (merged posts)

[whole diary]

[Chris from Nailsea]

From Yahoo! News:

Swiss authorities are investigating the crash of a train locomotive into a string of passenger rail cars during a maneuvering operation that injured 27 people, though none seriously.

Police and medical teams were rushed to the scene of the accident in the central town of Andermatt involving the locomotive and five cars with about 100 passengers on board.

Regional train operator Matterhorn Gotthard Bahn said the train's locomotive was supposed to move from the back of the train to the front on a parallel track, but instead crashed into the back of the train.

Spokesman Jan Baerwalde of train service operator Matterhorn Gotthard Bahn said authorities were investigating the cause of the crash.

The Uri regional police department said none of the injuries were life-threatening.

[RailCornwall]

This Autumn the Rhaetian Railway in Switzerland are to attempt to run a world record 1.9km long passenger service on it's network.

A 'rehearsal' was held earlier this month

https://www.suedostschweiz.ch/rhb-rekord?utm_campaign=so-auto&utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social_page

Use Google Translate.

[RailCornwall]

Completed today

https://twitter.com/FlywheelMedia1/status/1586338247785205760

[broadgage]

Very impressive. Reported as 25 EMUs^▸ (Electric Multiple Unit) each of 4 cars, coupled together. Bit surprised that the OHLE^▸ (Over-Head Line Equipment (electrification via catenary)) could supply enough current for that lot, especially when considering that significant gradients were involved.

[grahame]

Very impressive. Reported as 25 EMUs^▸ (Electric Multiple Unit) each of 4 cars, coupled together. Bit surprised that the OHLE^▸ (Over-Head Line Equipment (electrification via catenary)) could supply enough current for that lot, especially when considering that significant gradients were involved.

Indeed -  though reading suggests that the regenerative braking system software was modified to avoid too much power being put back into the system on downhill sections!

[Red Squirrel]

Presumably there must have been times when some of the train was going uphill while other parts were going downhill… does that mean some units were consuming power while others were regenerating?

[RailCornwall]

BlickTV were the 'official' broadcaster of the event, their recorded livestream is currently online, Commentary in Schweizerdeutsch and Rumantsch

here -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjvz52iJafA

The line is predominately slightly 'uphill' (the direction of the attempt) but is conventional traction, there are no rack sections. From viewing the video I'd estimate only eight or nine of the units were pantograph up so the remainder were being pulled. The attempt couldn't have been in a more scenic area which has several overlapping twists and turns.

[stuving]

Several reports I've seen say this was a downhill run, working within an agreed limit of power sent to the  power grid. I saw part of a presentation by one of the railway's managers in which he was making a big thing of how many homes it was powering - odd, since this was only done for the RhB's benefit. An example from trains.com

The record-breaking, 100-car train was 1,910 meters (2,089 yards). It left Preda at 2:20 p.m. and shortly after 3:30 pm. crossed the Landwasser Viaduct. The 15.6 mile (24.93 kilometer) journey from Preda to Alvaneu, was downhill starting over a mile above sea level (Preda is at 1,788 meters, or 5,866 feet) and descending nearly half a mile to 1,000 meters, or 3,281 feet. During the descent, the train — which weighed 3,300 tons (or 2,900 metric tons) — was using electrical regenerative braking and generated 4000 kilowatt-hours of power. It travelled mostly at around 20 mph.

[infoman]

11 february 2023,showing how two different gauges are used without passengers having to alight/change coaches

[infoman]

Jungefrau,BBC^» (British Broadcasting Corporation - home page) 24 hours news item on monday 20 march 2023,about the lack of snow on the mountains.

[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.

[RailCornwall]

Increasing motor congestion on the roads to Lauterbrunnen and Grindelwald from Interlaken has led the local and national Swiss Governments to propose, build and open a new Park and Ride site on the Berner Oberland Bahn (BOB) using land from the cold war Swiss Military airstrip to the south east of Interlaken at Matten. The scale of the site is enormous as can be seen in this video, of the now opened facility, recently published on YouTube by the prolific AKSense - Zurich transport channel.

https://youtu.be/zhet3eo3oQk?si=PsNiWjUdhFsvNwd3&t=141

This has not, like many such schemes, been done 'cheap'.

(The whole video shows the line from Interlaken Ost to Lauterbrunnen).

This project is the latest in a series of developments across the Bernese Oberland which has included extensive doubling between Wilderswil and Zweilutchinen, a new tunnel SE of Zweilutchinen on the Grindelwald line removing a notorious riverside kink in the infrastructure. Repair work across the network following intense storm damage in 2005. The major work however being the new Eiger Express Cableway to Eigergletcher from Grindelwald Terminal which has involved a new station between Grindelwald and Schwendi, Grindelwald Terminal and reworking of the Jungfraubahn immediately before the entrance/exit from the tunnel through the Eiger to Jungfraujoch.

These works are all visible in videos on the same and across other channels.