Monday 4 September - Appenzellerbahn

The objective today was to ride some of the Appenzell trains. To get there we took a rather different route as follows:

A train from Zurich to Zeigelbrucke then another train to Buchs, after which a bus took us to Altstatten station, followed by another bus to Altstatten  Stadt. It was bright and sunny this morning and we saw many storks stalking in the fields and there were cormorants drying their wings on the shores of the lakes. There were large numbers of water birds including grebes and coots.

Ziegelbrucke
We passed quite close to the border with Lichtenstein on the bus.
At Altstatten we took the rack train up to Gais. We climbed out of the valley, watching several hawks taking advantage of the air currents.
Train arriving at Altstatten with bicycle car on the front




Tank traps

The Appenzell region is notable for the consistent colour of the grass. It is the same consistency in the valleys as well as on the high meadows and it looks as if it had been put down by a model static grass system.
Gais
At Gais we took a quick transfer to the train to Appenzell
Appenzell

Appenzell
From Appenzell we took a train to Herisau and transferred to get to Lichtensteig which won an award recently for the way it had restored its heritage industrial buildings.

A local train to Wil put us on to the main line back to Zurich. All told today we rode five standard gauge trains, (3 companies), three narrow gauge trains and two buses.









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