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 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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