Fribourg and Kerzers - Saturday 7 September 2024

 

The funicular at Fribourg celebrated its 125th anniversary earlier this year. It is quite short but easily accessible within the town centre, It is the last water operated funicular railway in Switzerland, possibly in Europe. It originally used waste water but this was changed to a more hygienic operation many years ago, However, the smell of the water that was discharged at the bottom was not very pleasant.

We walked through the old town where there were a couple of Saturday markets which were very well stocked and well attended.
From Fribourg we went on to Bern where there was a lot of activity between the SBB station and the covered tram stop.


  
I took the obligatory pictures of the mechanical clock and after lunch at the Migros Restaurant, we moved on to Kerzers. This is a crossing  junction with an historic building containing an interlocking machine. Paul has a model of this on his home layout but this was the first visit we have made where the building was open to the public.




There was a fascinating explanation how it worked. This is very different from the lever type interlockings I was familiar with in England. It must have been tiring having to lean down low to complete the movement,

Showing the location of the building in relation to the railways

The actual crossing today.
We happily made our way back to Yverdon-les-Bains with a short stop at Neuchatel to admire the view over the lake towards the mountains.












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