SWITZERLAND | Railways

[K_]

Originally Posted by Coccodrillo

For Zürich - Stuttgart and Zürich - München more tilting trains will be ordered soon, probably a variant of the ETR 610.

They've just stopped using tilting trains on Zürich - Stuttgart. And why would SBB order some more ETR610 based trains after the bad experience they have with the current batch...

[viscAbarcelona]

Comment Bombardier a séduit les CFF

«Bombardier a clairement remporté cette offre. Leur dossier était meilleur. Leur projet a été novateur et supérieur sur de nombreux critères à ceux des autres entreprises. Le confort, le rapport qualité-prix et les coûts de fonctionnement durant tout le cycle de vie du train, et la ponctualité de la livraison comptent parmi les facteurs décisifs», relève Vincent Ducrot, chef ad interim de la section CFF voyageurs

«Des portes supplémentaires ont été prévues en queue et en tête des trains. L’entrée et la sortie des passagers se font ainsi de manière plus fluide.

De plus, la forme et la position des escaliers ont été optimisées, ce qui permet de gagner de la place. Grâce à cela, les trains que Bombardier fabriquera pourront accueillir 1300 passagers (ndlr: 1100 voyageurs dans les Intercity actuellement), soit davantage que les projets concurrents. Par ailleurs, le groupe canadien a pu complètement séparer la première et la deuxième classe, contrairement à l’une des deux autres offres», confie Vincent Ducrot.

La livraison des rames sera étalée sur plusieurs années. Les premiers trains produits par Bombardier devraient rouler dès 2015 sur les axes Saint-Gall-Zurich-Berne-Genève. La seconde et la troisième livraison auront lieu en 2017 et 2019. Bombardier développera une nouvelle technologie qui permettra d’augmenter de 10 à 15 km/heure la vitesse des trains à deux étages dans les virages. «Ainsi, nous pourrons relier Lausanne à Berne en moins d’une heure. En raison des tests et des travaux d’infrastructure que nous devons réaliser, ces trajets seront possibles dès 2020»,

Le Temps

Basically, the Bombardier train is much better in everything; the article adds that the number of jobs created in the country or whether it was a foreign company or not, were factors not considered at all for the decision, as the WTO forbids from doing so. If only all countries were such a good model to follow!

[K_]

Originally Posted by viscAbarcelona

Basically, the Bombardier train is much better in everything; the article adds that the number of jobs created in the country or whether it was a foreign company or not, were factors not considered at all for the decision, as the WTO forbids from doing so. If only all countries were such a good model to follow!

What the other countries do is not really that important. Switzerland is an open economy. Stadler Rail, a major Swiss constructor of rolling stock, and one of the other bidders, sells 3/4 of its trains abroad (even to the US). They would never have gotten so big if it wasn't for the free market...
When as a country you export you also have to import. It's good for Switzerland that the best offer won.
Other countries might not be so enlightened, but in the end it's their own economy they're damaging.

[Coccodrillo]

Originally Posted by K_

They've just stopped using tilting trains on Zürich - Stuttgart. And why would SBB order some more ETR610 based trains after the bad experience they have with the current batch...

The info seems quite sure. I don't have other details thought.

[Coccodrillo]

Some statistics, only in German and French, but easy to understand.

German:
http://www.litra.ch/Der_offentliche_...in_Zahlen.html
http://www.litra.ch/Die_Schweizer_si...ahnfahren.html

French:
http://www.litra.ch/Les_transports_p..._chiffres.html
http://www.litra.ch/Les_Suisses_a_no..._du_train.html

[Coccodrillo]

Transport of two cars of the Davos-Parsenn funicular up to 2700 m above sea level: http://la1.rsi.ch/home/networks/la1/...low#tabEdition

The vehicle run 3.3 km/h uphill and 0.5 km/h downhill, the cars were too heavy (17 tonnes) to be transported with an helicopter.

[Bart_LCY]

One of the world's most picturesque rail lines in the world, the Bernina Railway. Listed on UNESCO World Heritage Sites, now comes to you with this spectacular driver's view video!

The whole journey comes in 11 parts, here are the links to first and last:

[aliesperet]

Berner Oberland Bahn


Wengernalpbahn

image hosted on flickr

Jungfraubahn

[thun]

Oh god, the old BOB livery was so much better.

[Coccodrillo]

Most swiss companeis, not only railways but also bus companies, have changed the old pleasant livreries with new, mostily uglier, ones.

Look at this bus, before and after. Also TPC (the group of AL-ASD-AOMC-BVB) choose new disgsuting colours.

[earthJoker]

Breakthrough of the Weinbergtunnel:

Weinbergtunnel in Zürich durchstochen
Fünf Wochen nach dem Durchstich am Gotthard wurde in Zürich der Weinbergtunnel nach einer Panne doch noch durchschlagen. Der rund fünf Kilometer lange Tunnel ist ein Kernstück einer Durchmesserlinie und wird auch dem Fernverkehr dienen.

[thun]

indeed.

[Coccodrillo]

The 7th december will be the last day of operation of one part of the Luzern-Engelberg line, more or less this one, that climbs a 250 mm/m grade (1 in 4). From the 8th to the 11th the trains will be replaced by buses, then the 12th the new 4 km long Engelbergtunnel will be opened to traffic. Travel time will be reduced from 61 to 51 minutes but passengers will loose the nice view of the woods (as the railway runs throught a lot of trees, the panorama is not that great anyway).

[Momo1435]

Originally Posted by Coccodrillo

The 7th december will be the last day of operation of one part of the Luzern-Engelberg line, more or less this one, that climbs a 250 mm/m grade (1 in 4). From the 8th to the 11th the trains will be replaced by buses, then the 12th the new 4 km long Engelbergtunnel will be opened to traffic. Travel time will be reduced from 61 to 51 minutes but passengers will loose the nice view of the woods (as the railway runs throught a lot of trees, the panorama is not that great anyway).

Finally, it took them way too long to built this tunnel with all the problems it had. 9 years for 4 kilometers just shows that tunneling trough the mountains never gets easy.

[Coccodrillo]

Because of the 246 mm/m slope trains are limited in length. At peak times they leave Lucerne with 6 or 7 coaches, and leave some of them in Wolfenschiessen, a station before the slope, continuing with only 2 or 3 coaches and a single car EMU usually placed on the valley side (for safety reasons). The coaches detached from the asending train are taken over by the next descending train.

Downhill train near the tunnel portal near Engelberg.





Grünenwald stop. This together with Obermatt will remain without any service from the 12th December.







Obermatt as seen from the same place as the photo above.



Beginning of the ramp in Obermatt and the hydroelectric power station feeding the railway.



Valley portal at around 600 m above sea level, around 400 m below the other portal.



All photos were taken in July 2009 and show the part of line that will be closed. The short part of line between the valley portal and Obermatt will remain in place for the near future because it is used to feed the railway with electricity. The rest of the line will be demolished.

[Coccodrillo]

Other photos taken on the 28th November.

Double gauge switch.



Obermatt.



Grünenwald.

[Coccodrillo]

just a few hours before the clousure

====================================================

Cisalpino's nightmare seems endless: http://mct.sbb.ch/mct/konzern_dienst...05BE91FBCB9E63

Briefly, for the Milan-Zürich route (I have added some other informations other than those in the link above):
- passengers of 2 train pairs out of 8 will have to change trains in Chiasso because some ETR 470 will undergo heavy maintenance
- as the ETR 610 cannot tilt, one train pair using them will officially have a delay of 20 minutes (the other 7 will have an unofficial random delay between 5 and 40 minutes as usual)
- these 8 train pairs will have until the end of January a backup train between Zürich and Chiasso running on time because there will certainly be enormous delays for the regular EC CIS trains
- the other 6 train pairs cancelled in December 2008 will obviously not reinstated at least until 2016 leading to overcrowding of some trains (standing passengers)
- considering that the normal schedule is based on 4 ETR 470 running and 5 as spare or in maintenance, but even that 20 minutes delays are common, I expect even worse delays when half of the fleet is out of service and there will be no spare set to replace delayed or broken trains
- I remind that the worst result of the extremely unreliable ETR 470 was achieved around autumn 2009 when 6 trains out of 9 were out of service due to various failures

[Suissetralia]

those trains couldn't be more disastrous, I wonder for how long is SBB-CFF going to retain them, even if they are relatively new, new trainsets should be purchased (no need to say fiat-alstom shouldn't be allowed to participate in the bid), I hope they don't wait until GBT is opened

[K_]

Originally Posted by Suissetralia

those trains couldn't be more disastrous, I wonder for how long is SBB-CFF going to retain them, even if they are relatively new, new trainsets should be purchased (no need to say fiat-alstom shouldn't be allowed to participate in the bid), I hope they don't wait until GBT is opened

They are going to wait till the GBT is opened before putting different trains on this service, and this for good reason. The GBT will increase the range of rolling stock that can be used on the route, as it will be cleared to a larger loading gauge, and higher speeds will be possible without needing tilting trains. There is no need to buy yet another set of tilting trains.
I think that once the GVT is open it will be the end for the ETR 470. The ETR 610 seems to be more reliable, so it will probably be around a bit longer.

SBB is currently looking to purchase more trainsets for international services. They will probably want to buy something that is compatible with both France and Italy and it currently looks like SBB might actually buy some Alsthom TGV Dasye sets. From a point of view of buying something proven and reliable that would be a good choice.

[Coccodrillo]

The GBT will allow double deck trains (built to swiss highest loading gauge - low double deck trains (that SBB doesn't own) are already possible), but the few tunnels on access lines will not.

The idea now seems to order more ETR 610, partly as refund for the delays in the delivery of the first 14.

As for the ETR 470, they are quite confortable and some train drivers consider them quite good if not better than the ICN...when they don't broke down (they are quite unreliable - but I suspect it's also lack of maintenance...). Apart from the 470 the problem is that the timetable is too optimsitic especially between Lugano and Milano where it's easy to have delay.