Virtual Railfan Tour of Switzerland - Monday - Biel - Tauffelen - Ins Bahn
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A train at Tauffelen, the center of the system
The meter gauge line between Biel, Tauffelen and Ins, close to Bern is run by the AARE Seeland mobil system which runs buses and a couple of narrow gauge railways in the area.
At Biel/Bienne (the only bilingual Swiss city) the train starts from a platform underneath the main standard gauge platform.
This is the track layout at Biel/Bienne. The narrow gauge sneaks out heading south
Once in the daylight we get a quick glimpse of older equipment
We soon pass through the city outskirts and the journey is then through very pleasant farmland. Paul and I chose to come this way one Sunday afternoon. We intended to go through to Ins and catch a local train back to Bern. The narrow gauge was on a half hourly service but only one an hour went right through to Ins. We decided to go as far as Tauffelen and wait for the next train through to Ins.
Tauffelen
Tauffelen was shut up tight on Sunday afternoon as was the railway.
One of the five standard 3 section articulated units arrives at Tauffelen.
The ride through to Ins was again through pleasant farming country.
We never knbow what to expect at Ins as it seems to be permanently under construction
There is a good chance we will see narrow gauge work equipment
Even the obligatory Post Bus seems at a loss to know where to park
Of course the connecting train to Bern arrives on time
This short video has a long introduction but it does give a good idea of the area through which the line runs as well as a narrow gauge freight train.
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 sing...
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
Today we left Yverdon-les-Bains and traveled back to Zurich in preparation for return to Canada tomorrow. In the morning we took an ICN through Neuchatel to Oensingen. We left four minutes late but with a tight throttle and the banking on these trains we left Neuchatel on time - it was an exciting ride. At Oensingen there was quite a lot to see. As well as the main line freight a single manned diesel switcher went across the main line a couple of times to pick up empty cars. The two narrow gauge trams from Solothurn and Langenthal came in and reversed. Main line freight The standard gauge line to Balstall was using an SBB train with TPN markings. In addition there was a magpie poking around on the ground, and a couple of kites flying around. We went on to Olten for lunch at the M igros restaurant. After lunch we took a short trip to Daniken on the main line. Just after we got there we saw three freight trains with Re 420s on them and a further SBB Vectron o...
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