The Railways of Switzerland
(Standard Gauge)
How it all started
The first railway company in Switzerland was formed in 1836 with the intention of constructing a line from Basel to Zurich. However, financial problems resulted in the project being abandoned in 1841. The first actual stretch of railway track on Swiss territory was constructed in 1844 as part of the line from Strassburg to Basel.
The railway truly came to Switzerland in 1846, with the founding of the Nordbahn, which opened its line from Zurich to Baden in 1847 and quickly assumed its popular name "Spanisch-Broetli Bahn", derived from a local speciality of the bakeries in Baden. Ec 2/5 Genf, built in 1858 by the Maschinenfabrik Esslingen, entered service on the Schweizerische Centralbahn the same year. The locomotive saw regular service on trains from Basel to Bern and from Olten to Luzern until 1899. It was then used as steam generator at the Olten depot works and received a complete restoration in 1958 in order to haul the centenary train through the Hauenstein tunnel - after having pulled the inauguration train a 100 years before.Today, Genf is part of the exhibition at the National Transport Museum in Luzern as the oldest original motive power in Switzerland.
Following intense and harsh political discussions, a federal law on railways was passed in 1852. Politicians and parties in favour of a state railway lost out, and private companies continued to construct new lines, e.g. Zurich to Winterthur (1855) and Luzern to Zurich (1864). The first major railway tunnel - a feature which would become symbolic in many ways for the railways of Switzerland - was opened in 1858: the Hauenstein tunnel was the major engineering feature in establishing a railway link between Basel and Olten, constructed by the Schweizerische Centralbahn.
Bern railway station prior to 1864
The Gotthardbahn
The Gotthard route, running from the industrial and business centers in northern Switzerland to the lakeside localities on the border with Italy in the South, has always held a deep fascination with railway enthusiasts. The 160 kilometers (100 miles) of railway track are characterized by a sinuous course on steep gradients which, in a number of places called for winding helicoid loops - only 18% of the route is level. The culminating point on this truly incredible railway route is the 15 kilometers (almost 10 miles) long Gotthard tunnel under the Alps.
This rail link was the brain child of Swiss railway pioneer Alfred Escher, and work began in 1872 on both sides of the mountains, at Goeschenen in the North and Airolo in the South, lead by chief engineer Louis Favre from Geneva. Neither Escher (who had to leave the Gotthardbahn Company in 1878 due to economic difficulties) nor Favre (who died in 1879 in the tunnel when suffering a heart attack - one of a total of 290 lives the tunnel claimed) were there to see their project become reality when the two bores of the tunnel met in 1880, with full train service starting in 1882 when the equally arduous approach lines had been completed.
The C 5/6 (2-10-0) Gotthard steam engine nicknamed "Elephant"Steam power reigned for over forty years until electrification reached the line just after World War I. With electric and thus increased motive power at hand, heavier loads could be moved at greater speeds, and the Gotthardbahn became the most heavily used international route from North to South in Europe. Tonnage and passenger numbers increased dramatically and gave birth to impressive mountain railway locomotives which became icons of Swiss engineering and Swiss railways, with the famous "Crocodile" as one of the world's truly classic locomotives.
The Jura - Simplon - Bahn
The Jura - Simplon - Bahn was created in 1890 through the merger of the Jura - Bern - Luzern - Bahn (running from Basel and Delemont - Biel to Bern - Langnau - Luzern) and the Compagnie des chemins de fer de la Suisse-Occidentale (the Westbahn). The Valais Line was opened in 1859 as Ligne d'Italie from Bouveret, on Lake Geneva, to Martigny VS and Sion and taken over, following bankruptcy, by the Simplonbahn which extended the line to Brig in 1878. The Simplon line itself was merged in 1888 by the Westbahn. Construction of the Simplon tunnel was agreed upon in 1895 between Switzerland and Italy in a formal treaty, started in 1898, and completed in 1906. With a total length of 19,803 m this tunnel remained the longest railway tunnel in the world virtually up until the end of the 20th century.
The crisis of the private companies and Nationalisation
An acute financial crisis of many private railway companies in conjunction with a series of tragic accidents associated with an alarming negelct of safety standards (for instance, 73 people died in 1891 when a railway bridge simply collapsed) lead to the nationalisation of the large private railway companies and the forming of a state railway system, the Swiss Federal Railways (Schweizerische Bundesbahnen, SBB) in 1902, following an overwhelming approval (68% yes) of the new federal railway act by popular vote. One important aspect of the discussion, lead by conservative federal concillor Joseph Zemp, was to avert foreign control over the railway system in Switzerland, resulting in massive purchases of the shares by the confederacy of the following companies: Nordostbahn, Centralbahn (Basel - Olten - Luzern ), Boetzberg- und Aargauische S¸dbahn (Basel - Brugg - Rotkreuz), Gotthardbahn, Jura - Simplon - Bahn, Bruenigbahn, Wohlen - Bremgarten, Vereinigte Schweizerbahnen, and the Toggenburger- und Wald - Rueti - Bahn.
Purchase procedures were set to be completed by 1903, but as the Gotthardbahn had been constructed with large financial contributions from Italy and Germany the state treaties on the Gotthardbahn had to be amended. In the end, both Italy and Germany settled for lower transit charges, but the Gotthardbahn eventually did not join the SBB before 1909.
From this point on, new railway lines were constructed on the basis of a mixed venture with the status of transport companies with a state concession (konzessionierte Transportunternehmen) whilst being heavily subsidised by both confederacy and cantons. The widely used term "private railway companies" is misleading as only about one third of the shares is actually owned by private investors, whereas the stock majority remains with the confederacy or the cantons. perhaps the best known example is the Bern-Loetschberg-Simplon Bahn BLS: the canton of Berne holds a stock majority of 66%, with slightly over 17% of stocks being controlled by the confederacy and private investors.
The Bern - Loetschberg - Simplon - Bahn (BLS)
When the Gotthard railway line opened in 1882, it effectively sidelined the canton of Berne from the main North-South traffic route. Facing the potential negative consequences for its economy, the canton claimed its right under the new federal railway act to establish its own transit railway company. Not surprisingly the federal authorities categorically opposed any rival transit route and therefore denied any financial support. Substantial financing came from investors and business circles in Paris, because France had lost its rail connection to Switzerland at Basel after surrendering Alsace and Lorraine to Germany in 1871. The frontier town of Delle was to be the new gateway to Switzerland and Italy.
The Bernese Alpine Railways Company BLS (Bern-Loetschberg-Simplon) was founded in 1906, and construction of the 58 km mountain route started that same year. The main engineering challenge was the 13,7 km Loetschberg Tunnel, where work began in October 1906, the same year the Simplon Tunnel between Brig and Iselle (Italy) was officially inaugurated.
In 1907 the federal authorities - now having second thoughts about the railway line - ordered the BLS to expand the Loetschberg Tunnel to double-track and to design the profile of its access ramps accordingly. However, for financial reasons, only the Loetschberg Tunnel itself was originally built for double-track. Eventually the Loetschberg Tunnel came to be 900 m longer than originally planned, i.e. 14.612 km, and was finally tunnelled through on 31 March 1911. Once the northern and southern access ramps had been completed (including 33 tunnels, 3 avalanche galleries and 22 bridges), the AC-powered Loetschberg railway (15,000 V, 16 2/3 Hz) was officially opened on 19 June 1913.
In 1915 BLS inaugurated the Grenchenberg line between Moutier and Lengnau (including the 8,5 km long Grenchenberg tunnel). This line was to provide access to the border station at Delle. However, Alsace and Lorraine were returned to France under the Treaty of Versailles in 1919, and Delle's significance as a border crossing fell apart almost immediately as transit traffic was once again routed via Basel/St Louis. However, a noteable rise in freight traffic between Germany and Italy over the Loetschberg-Simplon route meant that profits more than outweighed the loss of transit traffic via Delle for the BLS - in fact, both international and national traffic soared to an extent which quite simply wiped out all of the doubts which had once existed concerning both the political and economic sense of this new route through the Alps.
1920s - 1940s
During the 1920s - 1940s period, Swiss Federal Railways pushed their mainline electrification programme in order to win back customer confidence which had taken a beating during the First World War as a result of frequent service interruptions due to shortage of coal.
Z¸rich main station in 1923
(Brown Boveri Compagnie BBC) [click for larger image]Although this is the Swiss "steam/electric transition" era, and although steam bowed out on Swiss rails as late as 1968, the visual image of the Swiss railways was changing dramatically. By 1937, even major secondary lines were fully electrified, and a wide range of electric locomotive prototypes could be seen all over Switzerland, wearing a standard green livery (preceeded by brown until 1928). However, modernisation initiatives slowed down after 1933 and came to a grinding halt with the outbreak of the Second World War.
1950s - 1960s
Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, electrification of the remaining routes progressed until the entire network was fitted for electric traction. Steam was not only on its way out, it was also seen increasingly as a less than ideal form of propulsion, not the least with concerns over air pollution becoming increasingly stronger in this era of economic and thus also industrial growth.
Steam shunters were the first to go, being replaced by diesel locomotives (the first Tem tractors entering traffic in 1950 and the Ee 3/3 outshopped in 1951), but steam's last bow on Swiss railway tracks didn't take place until January 1966, even though new and highly powerful electric locomotives with bogies and multiple trailer units were appearing fast and in large numbers right from the early 1950s after the Re 4/4 I had been outshopped in late 1949.
In September 1952, Swiss Federal Railways saw the inauguration of what was to become one of its icons, as the first Ae 6/6 (loco number 11401) entered service.
A brand new Ae 6/6 at Airolo in 1955
(Hans B. lsterli Collection) [click for larger image]In 1955 the first express trains on Swiss Federal Railways recieved names, and grab and hand rails on motive power were painted yellow for better visibility. In 1956, Ce 6/8 III crocodiles were upgraded, becoming Be 6/8 III 13101-13318 and now allowed to run at a max top speed of 75 km/h.
In May 1963, A 3/5 loco no. 705 became the last express steam engine to be withdrawn from service, and the first Re 4/4 II (no. 11201) entered service in October of that same year. In 1965, the first prototypes of the EW II A and
1970s - 1980s
The 1970s/1980s were a transition period for Swiss Federal Railways - while age-old equipment was still in use in the 70s, the first concepts for a modernised Swiss rail network were put forward. In 1985, Swiss parliament approved of the "Bahn 2000" (rail 2000) project, followed by a popular vote in favour when a national referendum was held in 1987.
1987 ad featuring the "Rail 2000" locomotive Re 4/4 IV and the hallmark slogan of Swiss rail modernization:
In Zukunft die Bahn - In the future it's the railways
1990s
Picture © SBBDuring the 1990s, the ambitious modernisation programme which was started in the 1980s, began to reach the rails, and the operations as well as the appearance of Swiss Federal Railways started to change. New and ultra-modern motive power and rolling stock turned new concepts of rail transportation into an everyday reality.
At the same time, adapting to the European Union's regulations of gradually providing free access to the rail infrastructure to any train operator transformed the Swiss rail scene more dramatically than was perhaps perceived at the time. It was in general a time of letting go of traditions, and the first to go was locomotive manufacturing in Switzerland. SLM Winterthur, the largest locomotive builder in Switzerland and nicknamed simply "Loki", wasn't helped at all in a time of fierce price competition by the fact that the company had been acquired by a large concern (Sulzer) who had no tradition in this domain and seemed to feel that small profits just weren't enough in a strategic concept where shareholder value and return on interest were the core values. And so, the "Loki" was derailed after 127 years of making some of the best locomotives in the world. The bottom line for Swiss Federal Railways - itself in a position of having to reduce deficits - was that the Re 460 and Re 465, the last locomotives produced by SLM, were great machines, but simply too expensive when compared to other traction on the market which was being produced in large numbers.
As the 1990s came to a close, the railways in Switzerland had taken on an entirely new image, portraying a dynamic and modern transportation system. European Union regulations called - for better or worse - for a semi-privatised railway network which made competition by several rail operators possible, i.e. "open access". For Switzerland, this meant that on 1 January 1999 SBB was transformed from a state-controlled entity into a joint-stock company owned by the Swiss Confederation. As SBB AG has to comply with specific federal rules, it is classified as a so-called "joint-stock company under special law". Every four years, the federal government sets out performance goals for SBB. On this basis, the Board of Directors of SBB AG works out the company’s strategy, while the Management Board is responsible for implementing this strategy. The "old" SBB was split up and sectorised into passenger, cargo, and infrastructure divisions.
Swiss railways today - Bahn 2000
The ruling policy of "Open Access" has changed the railways very noticeably: DB locomotives now pull freight trains on both the Loetschberg and the Gotthard route, and other train operators are set to offer and run their services over Swiss rails.
SBB advertising campaign for Bahn 2000
Certainly one of the major changes for the Swiss railways (and the train customers) was the new timetable which came into force on 12 December 2004 at 3 o'clock in the morning. With this, Bahn 2000 became reality, once again making Switzerland a nation of railway pioneering, with a density of train frequencies unparalleled anywhere else in the world. The new Bahn 2000 timetable is only the first episode, focussing on passenger operations. With the opening of the new Loetschberg and Gotthard base tunnels in the near to mid-future, freight traffic will see a rail revolution too. While other countries are still visualizing the future of rail transportation, Switzerland is already - as an SBB slogan points out - on track.
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created 08/NOV/2004
Last revised 20/DEC/2004
