Journey to Zurich Hauptbahnhof, Dolderbahn, Wiedikon and Wallace Fountain

 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. These very powerful locomotives have been partially replaced by more modern locomotives but SBB still finds a good use for them as they do for the 4/4s. As we anticipated our rooms were not ready but we left our bags in the hotel lock up and went down to the SBB Hauptbahnhof  to see what was new. What we came across first was the 4/4 at the head of this page, one of the oldest and which we thought had been scrapped a couple of years ago.

The train cleaning crews were at work. The sparrows spend a lot of time eating the flies and bugs that get caught on the front of trains.

A quick visit to a Swisscom outlet saw our cellphones with new sim cards that will work locally throughout our stay.

It was still early Wednesday morning so we had a brunch snack at the end of one of the platforms and then made our way on tram 3 to the base station of the Dolderbahn at Romerhof. This is a short rack operated tramway which climbs. There are two cars driven manually which pass at a central siding. Some of the grades are very steep indeed and the top end is pleasantly wooded. There is a pit at the covered station at each end where maintenance can be carried out. The intriguing feature of this line is the two switches for the siding. The two running rails and the rack are bent so there is no gap in the rails. The two cars are getting old and a contract has already been let to replace them.

Base station

Upper station

Arriving at upper station

Upper switch

Train passing lower switch

Lower switch set for the main line

Lower switch changed for the siding

From the lower station we caught the tram back into town and changed for Wiedikon where there is a tram depot with a large condo development built over it.

Back to the hotel to check in and a little down time.

We then went back out to try unsuccessfully to find a recycling depot served by the tramway.

Back in town I found a Wallace fountain. (We had found it last time). Wallace fountains are a common feature of Paris but they are not found elsewhere. This one was given to Zurich by Paris in 1982 to commemorate a water conference.

This one is in good condition and carries plaques to explain its reason for being in Zurich. While we were there an old lady came along and filled her water bottle from it.

We had supper sitting on a bench on the platform at Zurich. A surprising find was a 4/4 with a diamond pantograph. There are only a very few of these left now.

I arrived back at the hotel around 1830 and will shortly be ready for bed. Bearing in mind I had very little sleep last night we have put in a very good day today.