Sunday 3 September - Hochdorf Open Day and the Swiss Museum of Transport

We had two objectives today :-

Visit the open day at Hochdorf, on the Seethalbahn, which is now a country branch operated by the SBB. 

From there we planned to go to Lucerne and visit the Transport Museum. 

From Zurich we took a local train to Brugg where we changed to another local train to Lenzburg. The Seethalbahn starts from a platform across the road from the main station. Leaving Lenzburg one has the impression that this is just a local town run. But very quickly we leave the houses behind, the land turns green and a church on a green treed hill indicates the real nature of this branch line which is to serve the local farming communities. The small villages are built around a typical church with its clock and spire, and many of the larger backyards contain apple trees. Farming is mixed with some arable, particularly corn and sunflowers but also there are cattle and presumably pigs in the farms as well. The train service is quite good there being at least two an hour in each direction. 

There are many small streams, mostly with trees and bushes. On the east side there is a large lake called Hallwiler See and we run past this for some way. Further south the line runs along the west side of Baldegger See. It is a Sunday morning but many people are out and the train is quite busy. We saw storks flying over the fields.

Many of the houses in the villages are large three-story but there were also a number of four-story apartment buildings constructed quite large but within scale. In several locations there are apple orchards which are covered with wire netting to keep the birds out.

The arrival at Hochdorf was on time and all the church bells were ringing welcome.  We used the subway to get direct access to the the railway show. One steam locomotive was in steam, there was also the crocodile that we saw at Olten a couple of weeks ago together with a side rod switcher which was in use.

456 was on display

This was in steam and giving rides

The side rod switcher was active

The model railway exhibits were extremely good. The space available was quite small and all the exhibits were pretty small but the detail was very well done. I particularly liked the steam locomotive test bed.

The above five pictures show one beautiful On30 exhibit

This video shows a steam locomotive test plant - in HO

One interesting aspect of this show and many other shows of a local nature are the entertainment both for the children and for the parents as well as providing food and drink The pictures show these quite well.

Communal eating, drinking and chatting

Getting the food and drink

The local bank has downed instruments and taken a break.

We took the train from Hochdorf to Luzern and quickly changed to another to get us to the Swiss Transport Museum.  After lunch we enjoyed Magnums in the shade and watched the children play. There are lots of things to keep them interested and the Museum seems to be able to think up new items all the time.

A robot followed me around.

Of course there were some more serious exhibits to see.

Waldenburgbahn locomotive

Demonstration of an automatic coupler for freight vehicles

A Stadler train simulator

Steam Tram

Zentralbahn narrow gauge car

In the end we sought out the model railway giving rides. They were using a Climax locomotive which was interesting as these were rarely, if ever used in Europe.

With a final look at this statue in the pond near the model railway we decided to catch a steamer across the lake back to Luzern and took the next train back to Zurich.