Saturday 29 August 2026

Catch of the Day at Zurich Amstetten

Our first task today was to take a train to Zurich Amstetten to see a special excursion train which was hauled by locomotive 11026 a Heritage unit from Olten built in 1927. It is an Ae 4/7. The excursion was running to Chur where there was a further trip on the Rhb. The train would be returning to Zurich and Olten this evening. We had good views of the heritage locomotive both running in and leaving. 

From there we went by train to Dietikon and took the narrow gauge tram to Bremgarten where we enjoyed the Saturday market and the views over the river.

Bremgarten market

Local artwork

Tram crossing the river

Wooden figure looking at the river

The local service is pretty good

We walked around and then continued our journey to Wohlen where we had a long wait for a train to Brugg where we found lunch at the local Migros.  This afternoon we caught a post bus to Schinzmachdorf Baumschul where there is a very, very large garden centre. It is so large that they have installed a two foot gauge railway to help with the heavy carrying during the week and to entertain tourists at the weekend. Today the train was hauled by a diesel because of the danger from sparks. It was hoped that steam would be used next weekend, We went into the workshop to see the treasures they held.

 

It was hot and we decided to catch the bus back to Brugg. It was a few minutes late which is unusual in Switzerland. When it arrived the reason became obvious. It was full and standing. The service runs every thirty minutes on Saturdays.

Back at Brugg we took a train to Kilwangen to see what was happening - there are normally a lot of freight trains during the week but nothing on Saturday. So we took a final train back to Zurich HB and called it a day,