Wednesday 9 September 2026 - Riding Various Short Lines

 We woke up this morning to find it was raining quite heavily and a little cooler. We had planed to go to 

At Les Locles where the train to Les Brenets was not running

Morges today but decided to take the trip through the Jura where we would be traveling more in trains rather than standing outside. We went to Neuchatel and took a train to Les Locles only to find out that the train to Les Brenets were not running today. This is a great disappointment to us because it would have been the highlight of the day. 

Jura train at La Chaux de Fonds

We came back to Le Chaux de Fonds but now of course we were quite a bit earlier than planned and so we took an earlier Jura train to Grovelier . The section through Combe Tabeillion with its reversing to take account of the steep drop always reminds me of the Central of Peru Railway. We changed for Delemont because there is a Migros restaurant there.

At Glovelier our narrow gauge train stands alongside a Jura railway standard gauge switcher

What to do with the afternoon? We went on through Moutier to Biel/Bienne and hurried into the dark tunnel to catch an Aare Seeland tram to Ins. This is always a pleasant ride - it is partly road running, roadside tramway and part through fields.

Aare Seeland train in Biel waiting to depart from the gloomy platform

At Ins we found two Magnums and the train to Neuchatel within a couple of minutes. The entry into Neuchatel on this line is always strange as there is a short single line section and there is always a wait for a train in the opposite direction.

The Aare Seeland terminus at Ins

The journey back to Yverdon was also interesting as the first train was an ancient "Domino" set built in the 1970s and stopping at all stations. It had to be pretty smart as there was an ICN on our tail by the time we had got in the clear at Yverdon.