Virtual Railfan Tour of Switzerland - Saturday - Brienze Rothorn Bahn Moutain Railway
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Brienze is served by Zentralbahn narrow gauge trains running between Interlaken and Meiringen. These trains which dated from the 1940s have now been replaced by shiny new multiple units.
The 800 mm gauge Brienze Rothorn Bahn is one of the few railways in Switzerland which is not electrified. There are some 14 steam locomotives running on the Abt rack system.
The boilers are set at an angle so as to be level on the gradient
The motion ios complicated - the drive being on the rack pinions
As we leave Brienze we see an early version of a green roof
As we leave Brienx=ze there are good views of Lake Brienze
Passing siding
We make a meet
And take water
At busy times trains are run in several sections
Views from the summit are wonderful
There is time to examine the locomotive before returning to Brienze
Steamer approaching the Brienze dock
the transport coordination at Brienze is a microcosm of what is practiced all over the country. the Zentralbahn trains meet here and are met by the steamer and at least one Post Bus so there is excellent interchangeability between water, road, two trains and the mountain railway.
There are many videos of this popular tourist railway.
This provides good views of the trains
This is billed as a driver's eye view. It is the view from the front - the driver is on the locomotive which is always at the lower end.
Zurich Hauptbahnhof Paul has prepared some extensive notes and photos of the Zurich Hauptbahnhof. This will be in several parts. The busiest station in Switzerland is Zurich Hauptbahnhof (Zurich HB) which is used primarily by the SBB. It has 26 tracks serving almost 3000 trains daily and it is one of the busiest stations in the world. It was built in the 1870s and is a main shopping destination as well as a transport hub. There are three levels for platforms and the "Shopville" shopping plaza. The river Sihl river passes right through the station with platforms passing above and below the river. This shows the general layout of the station with the surrounding tram tracks shown in purple Tracks 3 to 18 are terminal tracks located at ground level, served by two side platforms and seven island platforms. These are used by long-distance trains from throughout Switzerland, and by international trains. Tracks 21 and 22 are underground terminal tracks, served by a single island
Tuesday 23 August Paul and I travelled to Zurich on Air Canada via Toronto. The flight from Ottawa was over an hour late - luckily we planned for this with a three hour connection in Toronto. Toronto airport was disgusting. It was overcrowded and there was nowhere for people to stand while waiting to board their flights. Obviously the Toronto airport focusses on relieving passengers of their money. Once aboard the plane things went well. There was plenty of space for carry on and the flight was excellent. It seems that the problem with airline travel is the airports rather than the flights. Our flight landed four minutes ahead of schedule (Wednesday) which was 0800. By 0820 we had cleared passport control and by 0840 we had taken a connecting internal tram and found the tram to downtown. We could have taken the SBB trains but we were in no great hurry and we enjoyed the 35 minute tram ride to close to the hotel. At Gladbrugge we passed two SBB 6/6 locomotives on the main line close by
This video, by Noel Wyler, shows what we have just missed. Last Saturday (14 September) the Oensingen Balsthal Railway organized an event to commemorate 60 years of the Re 4/4 locomotives. They brought together 24 of them and ran them as one train. Paul and I flew home on KLM from Schiphol Airport. We took a train from Den Haag directly to the airport. The trip back was marred by a couple with a young boy who was obviously teething. He cried almost continuously for the full six hours. I found I could tune him out when I dug deep into the KLM sound system and found a treasure trove of classical music. Bach violin concertos, Mozart piano concerto No. 23, Beethoven symphonies, Schuman etc. We survived the stupidities at the entrance of the Montreal airport and caught the KLM bus back to Ottawa where we arrived precisely on time. A good ending to a wonderful, tremendous, trip
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