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. 

Ae 6/6

The Krocodile

It was difficult to photograph the Ae 8/14 because it has so many wheels

The Ae 8/14 is a massive machine

However there was a problem in that a train of wagons had been left in a siding which obscured the view of the historic equipment and surprisingly an SBB switcher arrived and pulled. these cars out. There was a problem in figuring out where to put them but they got them out of the way until the exercise had finished and then they put them back. I could just see CN or CN moving a bunch of freight cars for the rail fans in Canada. 
The SBB switcher moving the train of cars that were in the way

The final line up.

This was carried out surrounded  by mountains.

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.


On this railway the entire switch moves



We took the rack train back down to Arth Goldau and eventually took a 22 car Giruno train back to Zurich.

Comments

  1. Condor CounterSeptember 6, 2025 at 11:09 AM

    What a great collection of old electric locomotives. Too bad Canada/Ottawa can’t even preserve one streetcar 696.

    ReplyDelete
  2. MarkSeptember 6, 2025 at 11:49 AM

    I always liked the Krocodile - a very industrial look to it. (And I second what Condor Counter said about 696...)

    ReplyDelete
  3. Neil KearnsSeptember 6, 2025 at 2:03 PM

    The 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

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