Tuesday 1 September 2026 - The Area around St. Gallen

 


This morning we started out by taking a direct train from Zurich to St Gallen. There we went to the model shop ZubaTeck where Paul had a fine time looking at the incredible array of model railway equipment, all gauges. WE then took the narrow gauge Appenzell train from St. Gallen. This is pretty much a roadside tamway but the speeds are high

Gais
Some fun with the route between Gais and Amstatten
Gais - St. Gallen train leaving

From Gais we took the train down to Altstatten which goes down an incredible rack section overlooking the Rhine Valley. This brought back many memories of similar trips. The weather was fine and the views over the Rhine valley were excellent.
Train for Amstatten arriving at Gais
View over the Rhine Valley
The train at Alstatten showing a bicycle carrier coupled in front of the train


Alstatten

At Alstatten we had a quick lunch at the micros restaurant and then walked around the town a little in time to catch the next train back up the rack section to Gais.Just something I wanted to do and an opportunity to look out for a farm that has made good use of WWII tank traps.

We then took the Appenzell train back through St Gallen and to the end of the line at Trogen. There were some wonderful views over Lake Constance. 

At Trogen we found the Post Bus connection to Heiden which was a very pleasant ride through well forestry country with many steep hills and valleys. 


At Heiden a short walk took us to the upper terminus of the line from Rorschach. This is another Appenzell line, standard gauge rack only this one has three open coaches at the back in which we sat to enjoy the ride down the hill to Rorschach which is on Lake Constance.


Our train arriving at Heiden

This was quite a tiring day and we took a Twindex train straight back to Zurich

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Railfan Tour of Switzerland - Wednesday - Zurich Hauptbahnhof Part One

Image
Zurich Hauptbahnhof  Paul has prepared some extensive notes and photos of the Zurich Hauptbahnhof.  This will be in several parts.  The busiest station in Switzerland is Zurich Hauptbahnhof (Zurich HB) which is used primarily by the SBB. It has 26 tracks serving almost 3000 trains daily and it is one of the busiest stations in the world. It was built in the 1870s and is a main shopping destination as well as a transport hub. There are three levels for platforms and the "Shopville" shopping plaza.  The river Sihl river passes right through the station with platforms passing above and below the river. This shows the general layout of the station with the surrounding tram tracks shown in purple Tracks 3 to 18 are terminal tracks located at ground level, served by two side platforms and seven island platforms. These are used by long-distance trains from throughout Switzerland, and by international trains. Tracks 21 and 22 are underground terminal tracks, served by a sing...
Read more

Friday 12 September 2025 - The Last Hurrah

Image
Today we left Yverdon-les-Bains and traveled back to Zurich in preparation for return to Canada tomorrow. In the morning we took an ICN through Neuchatel to Oensingen. We left four minutes late but with a tight throttle and the banking on these trains we left Neuchatel on time - it was an exciting ride. At Oensingen there was quite a lot to see. As well as the main line freight a single manned diesel switcher went across the main line a couple of times to pick up empty cars.  The two narrow gauge trams from Solothurn and Langenthal came in and reversed.  Main line freight The standard gauge line to Balstall was using an SBB train with TPN markings.  In addition there was a magpie poking around on the ground, and a couple of kites flying around.  We went on to Olten for lunch at the M igros restaurant.  After lunch we took a short trip to Daniken on the main line. Just after we got there we saw three freight trains with Re 420s on them and a further SBB Vectron o...
Read more

Coming Home - Wrap Up - Sunday 15 Setember 2024

Image
This video, by Noel Wyler,  shows what we have just missed. Last Saturday (14 September) the Oensingen Balsthal  Railway organized an event to commemorate 60 years of the Re 4/4 locomotives. They brought together 24 of them and ran them as one train. Paul and I flew home on KLM from Schiphol Airport. We took a train from Den Haag directly to the airport. The trip back was marred by a couple with a young boy who was obviously teething. He cried almost continuously for the full six hours. I found I could tune him out when I dug deep into the KLM sound system and found a treasure trove of classical music. Bach violin concertos, Mozart piano concerto No. 23, Beethoven symphonies, Schuman etc. We survived the stupidities at the entrance of the Montreal airport and caught the KLM bus back to Ottawa where we arrived precisely on time. A good ending to a wonderful, tremendous, trip  
Read more