Saturday 6 September 2025 - Visit to Erstfeld to see the Fitness Day then a trip up the Rigi
We went to Zurich main station to travel to Erstfeld. However,efore we left there were two interesting items.
An overnight locomotive hauled train arrived, and a Re 4/4 was put on the back to pull the empty carriages. It had a diamond stack.
As we were about to search for our train a red arrow came in, it was the Balsthal car ready to make its journey to Bauma for the weekend celebrations.
We took an ICN down to Arth Goldau and changed to a local train for Erstfeld. We arrived just as the show was beginning. SBB historic group here exercises some of the historic locomotives every first Saturday of the month. Today there was an Ae6/6, an Ae 8/14 and a krocodile. There was quite a gathering and the locomotives were run up and down in a couple of sidings so that everybody had a good view.
From Erstfeld we came back to Arth Goldau and rode the Rigi railway to the summit. The train up was quite full and coming back it was extremely full mainly because the weather was so great and there was very little clouds,. The views were stupendous from the top.
We took the rack train back down to Arth Goldau and eventually took a 22 car Giruno train back to Zurich.
What a great collection of old electric locomotives. Too bad Canada/Ottawa can’t even preserve one streetcar 696.
ReplyDeleteI always liked the Krocodile - a very industrial look to it. (And I second what Condor Counter said about 696...)
ReplyDeleteThe Ae8/14 was a pair of Ae4/7's back to back without the intermediate cabs. They were built for heavy passenger trains over the Gotthard line. They were completely outclassed as soon as the Ae6/6 locos appeared in the late 1940's. The loco with the chrome stripes is an Ae6/6. Due to their poor riding they were known as track eaters , but I can't remember the Sweitzer Deutch term for that. The next iteration of a six axle electric loco in Switzerland was the Re6/6 which had a Bo-Bo-Bo wheel arrangement instead of the Ae6/6 Co-Co.
ReplyDelete