Virtual Railfan Tour of Switzerland - Saturday - Sugar Beet Trains
Paul has provided this look at the fall sugar beet season.
The railways are busy in the fall during the yearly sugar beet campaign to supply two large factories with sugar beets for processing. Sugar beets from the Swiss lowlands as well as Germany are brought by rail to two Schweizer Zucker AG plants at Aarberg (near Bern) and Freuenfeld (near St Gallen's). The sugar beet campaign is usually in October and November but it can start as early as September and run into December.
Farmers bring in their crop of beets by tractor to a local loading points where gondolas are filled with beet. For many years these wagon were the trusty EAOS side door gondolas. They have become very battered over the years and these have been now replaced by brand new wagons.
Until recently, farmers in the Jura could deliver their loads to points on the narrow gauge YStC railway. The railway would shut down passenger traffic for many days to run freight trains of EAOS gondolas on skates to pick up the loads of beets. The wagons are pulled off their skates at Yverdon for transfer to the SBB. The disruption to passenger services on the YStC has proved to be too much and farmers must now get their loads to Yverdon themselves for loading.
The trains run to the factories to exchange their loads for empty wagons that need to get back to pick up the next days load of sugar beet. Local switching at the sugar factories is done by SBB Cargo diesel tractors.
The sugar beet trains have looked very different in the past two years since the SBB lost the contract with Schweizer Zucker and now private operators run the trains using any locomotive available at the time. Sometimes these are leased from the SBB or from other operators including rail tour operators. Private or leased SBB Re 4/4s are still very common but Re 6/6s and even an old Austrian Ae 1042 from the 1960s have been spotted running sugar beet trains in 2019.
EAOS wagons of sugar beets are transferred from the narrow gauge YStC railway at Yverdon in 2014.
Sugar Beet train in 2019. Trainsrail has a contract for running sugar beet trains. This is a leased Re 6/6 from a rail tour company leading a Trainsrail Re 4/4 still in its old Cargo livery. Battered EAOS wagons have been replaced with new sidedoor wagons.
Video showing the processing of beets at Aarberg. The beginning shows the unloading and cleaning of beets in the EAOS gondolas
Exotic Traction for Swiss sugar beet "campaign"
Under the above heading there is an item in Today's Railways Europe for December 2018
These trains often formed of 32 wagons weighed up to 2500 tons.. With a gradient of up to 12% between Basel and Frankenfeld the permitted loads are 1020 tons for Re 420 and 1120 tons for Re 430 locomotives. because of this, apart from two Re 420 leased from SBB (firstly 11134 and 11154, then 11108 and 11118) EDG also leased preserved electric railcar RBe 540 074 from the association ASF which was sandwiched between the two 420s. EDG would have preferred to have it marshelled at the head of the train in order not to expose it to traction forces but this would have required too much shinting when the train reversed. RBe 540 074 is seen sandwiched between Re 4/4 11154 and 11134 at Islikon on 2 October 2018.
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