A Visit to the Oensingen Balsthal Railway and more - Thursday 29 August 2024

I thought long and hard about an introductory picture for this day and finally decided upon this Guard Goat who kept a close eye on us while we were photographing industrial locomotives at Balsthal. Similar approach to the Guard Cat at Huntwangen Will a couple of days ago.

 We met the Managing Director of the Oensingen Balstal railway (OeBB) at Balsthal and he took us for a very thorough visit. The OeBB is a short standard gauge line running off the SBB line at Oensingen. It is a very active railway

- there is a strong passenger business with trains running to Oensingen every thirty minutes

- there is a good freight operation, mainly from a paper mill with interchange at Oensingen.

- the OeBB takes in locomotives from other railways and repairs them

- the OeBB acts as a dealer in second hand locomotives

- the OeBB has a strong heritage operation both with the locomotives and equipment is owns as well as other locomotives and equipment owned by others, including SBB Historique, which it stores and allows experts to work on.

The Red Arrow is one of two in operating condition. It is in beautiful condition.

Driving cab of the red arrow

The OeBB also has six steam locomotives, not all of which it owns. However, three are in excellent condition and are steamed regularly.


A Mallet

There is a wide range of equipment to be seen in the shed and yard. 
I remember seeing this locomotive with the advert for shoes on the Voralpen Express at Rapperswil. Now replaced by the Gottardo trains.


Some 1880 rail is still seeing good service in the yard.

These industrial switchers are looking for a new owner.

We said good bye and many thanks and decided to go back to Oensingen, take a look there, then come back to Balsthal and take the bus over to Wurtemburg.
There was much activity in the yard

The narrow gauge trains were running ceaselessly.

A passing freight on the main line blew up the dust

The regular OeBB passenger train is on the right with an OeBB freight ready to return to Balsthal in the foreground.
Back at Balsthal the bus to Wurtemburg was waiting for us. We got in and sat down waiting 15 minutes for departure time.

At Wurtemburg we took the tram for the delightful ride down the valley to Liestal.
The original intention was to get a snack at Liestal but the offering of the Migrolino was not enticing so we decided to take the train into Basel and have lunch at the Migros Restaurant there. There was a four minute connection at Liestal and we had to wait only two minutes at  Basel for the tram to the restaurant. After lunch we took the tram back to the station and a train to Sissach to watch the action.
Sissach - Re 460 locomotive

A Girouno

An IC 2000

Freight trains were pretty scarce but we did see this Re 420.

A light engine

As in previous years we returned from Sissach to Alton via the old line through Buckten. This is a delightful ride through pleasant farming country.





















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