Virtual Railfan Tour of Switzerland - Tuesday - Rigi and Vitznau Bahns
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Today we will ride the Arth Rigi Bahn, rack railway from Arth Goldau to the summit and then take the Vitznau Rigi Bahn down the other side to Vitznau. These are unusual for mountain rack railways in that they are standard gauge rather than narrow. There is an interchange with the SBB at Arth Goldau.
Arth Goldau is a busy station on the SBB line towards the Gotthard Pass. Here we see a 456 class locomotive on the Voralpen Express
This is the original Rigi station st Arth Goldau. It was in the process of being raised here as it is set over the SBB tracks. The station is now back in use again with direct access from the SBB platforms.
Arth Goldau
Boarding at the temporary station
While waiting for a meet we can examine the complicated rack switches
This line is different from most mountain railways in that it passes through farmland with many fields as well as well forest areas.
Our meet is entering the siding
The views from the summit (kulm) are wonderful
At the summit we look for the train to Vitznau on an adjacent track
We get seats behind the driver
Cow bells can be distinctly heard from inside the train
A meet on the way down to Vitznau
Approcahing Vitznau we have good views of the lake behind the town
Shop facilities are cramped here against the lake, access is via a turntable.
We take a look at the railway shop and then wait for the Lake Lucern steamer which will take us to the Swiss National Transport Museum
If you wish to take a cab tide over this scenic route there are many videos on Youtube
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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