Tuesday 9 September 2025 - Exploring railways in the Jura

We decided to change the schedule today to go to the Jura and hope that the weather is better in the Morges area tomorrow.  We wanted to see a number of narrow gauge lines:

- Le Locle to Les Brenets, operated by some old railcars and threatened with replacement by electric buses
- La Chaux de Fonds to Les Ponts de Martel
- Jura railway from La Chaux de Fonds to Glovelier
- Aare Seeland from Biel to Ins

We were leaving a fun place (Yverdon) and visiting the slug capital

Comedy from the Yverdon Post 

We first found a freight train in Yverdon headed by a 4/4. These are likely to become quite rare in the future. 

 We took a train to Neuchatel. From there we took a BLS to Le Locle. The train reverses at Chambrelien and this was speeded up by having a driver in the cab at each end. There was a little time at Le Locle there to see that's the sidings for the heritage group have now been practically completely cleared. We saw slugs. 

We saw several on the footpath

Train for Les Brenets at Le Locle

Les Brenets

The train to Les Brenets went well and we were happy to see a large group of deer sitting in a field. 

Back at Le Locle we decided to wait for the SNCF train from Besancon to get us back to La Chaux de Fonds. This is the only regularly scheduled diesel train carrying passengers in Switzerland.

Diesel - ugh

Lunch was at the Migros Restaurant in La Chaux de Fonds

After lunch the first thing to do was to see what we could see of the line to Les Ponts de Martel. We had planned to go out to a small station take pictures of a train and then come back to La Chaux de Fonds on the next train. The station we chose was La Courbatiere which is a request stop. We found out how to stop the train on the way out but when we got there we were dismayed to see a great deal of construction making photography difficult. The next problem was to stop the train coming in the other direction. The station building was under construction and there were no signs. After some searching we found a button and flashing green light which we pressed to turn on the signal for train to stop. 

La Courbatiere

We arrived back at La Chaux de Fonds and took the Jura train all the way through to Glovelier. This is a favorite journey with excellent views across the Jura with cattle rearing also horses and some deer. There is the stop in the woods at Combe Tabeillion where the train has to reverse to get down to Glovelier.

At Glovelier the Jura railway standard gauge switcher was alongside the narrow gauge train.

From Glovelier we took the SBB to Delemont and changed to an ICN for Biel/Bienne.

From Biel/Bienne we took the Aare Seeland roadside tramway all the way to Ins. The weather was improving all the time and there were superb views towards the mountains.

At Biel/Bienne the Aare Seeland trains have a dark and dreary platform.

As we made for Ins the weather improved and gave good views.

Our Aare Seeland train at Ins

From Ins we took a Fribourg train to Neuchatel and from there an SBB Domino to Yverdon. The Dominos are getting a bit long in the tooth and we do not know how much longer they will last. The line runs alongside Lake Neuchatel and the views were excellent.

Every train ran to time with the exception of the Jura train which arrived at Glovelier four minutes late but we made the connection alright. A long but interesting day