Day 3. Appenzellerbahn and hill climbing trains
The track layout at Zurich is incredible
Our trains today numbered fifteen, some with two minute connections. Everything went as planned. One train was two minutes late in departing and a second five minutes late in departing. All trains arrived on time.
Our train to St Gallen was a two unit ICN which was very comfortable. There was plenty of room in first class. Weekends are when one sees a lot of military traveling to and from the annual service. There was an officer in our first class car who picked his nose most of the way. Out in the country there are fields of sugar beet, corn and sunflowers and in the fields were several hawks and many cats searching for mice. There were many market gardens and farms including an ostrich farm.
At St Gallen we changed to a local train to Rorsach. There we were surprised and delighted to see our train to take us to Hayden was an electric rail car with three open wagons in front. These are all equipped with the rack. The trip up was through heavily forested hills with occasional breaks for small farms as well as a number of small settlements. The rack line is only 6 km long but it contains five requests stops all at small villages. The views across the lake were excellent and the trip was very worthwhile. Halfway up there was an interesting looking restaurant which would make an excellent visit. This line is standard gauge and uses the Riggenback rack system. The trip starts at the SBB station and crosses the main line before engaging the rack.
From Rorsach we took a short trip along the SBB to Rheineck where a second rack railway runs up the hill to Walzenhausen. This is laid to the unusual gauge of 1200 cm but also uses the Riggenback rack system. There are two tunnels on this short line but the views are excellent. The line uses the SBB station and runs a short way out of town before engaging the rack. The journey time was about six minutes.
Back at Rheineck a quick connection returned us to St. Gallen where we had a disappointment. We had allowed plenty of time to grab a sandwich at St. Gallen and visit the Zuba Teck model shop, only to find it was closed for lunch. We decided to leave St. Gallen for Gais 30 minutes earlier and spend a little time at Gais where there is a spectacular journey down into the Rhine Valley at Altstatten. The train to Altstatten came in with the normal bicycle wagon attached on the rear. A lady with two small children went up and one of the kids opened the flap to allow her to get her bike into the wagon and then to pull up the trailer. He had obviously done this before.
Train for Altstatten arriving at Gais - note bicycle wagon on back
The trip from Gais is down a very steep grade into the Rhine Valley. From Stoss there is a rack and the train just "falls" over the edge. My first visit on this line was in the cab and it was quite disconcerting. I was standing in the cab and the rails suddenly disappeared as the gradient changed and we started to fall into the into the Rhine valley. There are several stretches of rack all on the Strub system. When we arrived at the bottom at Altstatten I was surprised to feel a sprinkle of rain. We took the same train back up the hill admiring the view into the valley and also watching a large number of hawks circling around. The Gais line is meter gauge and there is talk of replacing it with a bus. This would be a pity and many cyclists would be disappointed at not being able to ride up the valley without the hard slog of the bicycle.
At Gais there was a quick connection with the train to Appenzell. We had a little time to look around the town which has some very interesting and beautiful old buildings.
From there we went on to Wasserauen and admired the amazingly green fields. It was as if we were traveling through an enormous golf course with the grass all the same color and all the same texture and all the same size. The cattle must be specially trained. Railway modellers, when making a field, tend to use the same colour and texture of grass. Normally they are told to vary the colour, texture and height of grass. It is said there is a prototype for every model. This area is a prototype for the lazy modellers' grass.
From Wasserauen the train brought us directly to Gossau where a heavily loaded train to Geneva Airport brought us back to Zurich dead on time.
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