Olten train station

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Olten
South-west of the Olten train station (from left to right: platform 1-4, south facade of the post office, platform 7-12)
South-west of the Olten train station (from left to right: platform
1–4, south facade of the post office, platform 7–12)
Data
Location in the network Crossing station
Design Island station
Platform tracks 10
abbreviation Oil
IBNR 8500218
opening June 9, 1856
location
City / municipality Olten
Canton Solothurn
Country Switzerland
Coordinates 635 447  /  244826 coordinates: 47 ° 21 '12 "  N , 7 ° 54' 28"  O ; CH1903:  six hundred thirty-five thousand four hundred and forty-seven  /  244826
Height ( SO ) 396  m
Railway lines
List of train stations in Switzerland
i16

Olten train station around 1860.

The Olten station is a major hub stations in Switzerland. For this reason and because there have always been a large number of railway employees living in the city, the municipality of Olten is considered a railway town . The main workshop built by the Swiss Central Railway next to the Olten train station, from which the Olten industrial plant, which is now responsible for the entire passenger car fleet of the Swiss Federal Railways , arose, also created many jobs .

With a daily frequency of over 80,000 passengers, the station is one of the 20 largest stations in Switzerland. However, if the number of trains is used for comparison, it comes in second after Zurich main station .

In Bahnhofbuffet Olten , which is considered a popular venue due to its central location in the rail network of Switzerland, numerous national associations and enterprises have been established since the 1860s.

history

The municipal assembly of the city of Olten decided on June 19, 1853 to provide the Swiss Central Railway (SCB) with hundreds of hectares of land free of charge so that it could build the station and the railway lines. The SCB also received the site for the workshops from the city; it acquired the area of ​​today's IW in the Tannwald early on. In addition, the SCB was allowed to clear land in the community forest and remove sand and stone from the ground free of charge. The railway company received very generous support from the community. The area made available was on the right bank of the Aare opposite the old town. The rock head of the Geissfluh standing in the middle of the area was blown away for the construction of the main workshop. As the first manager and machine master of the workshop, SCB employed Niklaus Riggenbach , who later had great success as a builder of rack railways .

In Olten station and on the Aarau - Lucerne line , the SCB began operations on June 9, 1856. The station has served as a network node since March 16, 1857, as the Aarburg - Oftringen - Herzogenbuchsee line was opened on that day . The trains on this line used the depot in Olten and were therefore tied between Herzogenbuchsee and Olten from the start. On May 1, 1858, the opening ceremony of the Hauenstein line , the first mountain railway line in Switzerland, with the 2495-meter-long summit tunnel took place.

On December 4, 1876, the Gäubahn was added from Olten via Oensingen to Solothurn . Since then, the Olten station building has been located on an island between two groups of tracks. When it opened on January 8, 1916, the route through the 8134-meter-long Hauenstein Base Tunnel with its flatter elevation profile over Gelterkinden supplemented the network of railway lines near Olten. He was still the last extension is since 2 April 1981, the 5.5 km long Born line , its extension in 2004 opened Mattstetten-Rothrist is. This means that three railway lines lead to Olten on both sides of the station.

On the old Hauenstein line, some time after the opening of the base tunnel, the original double lane was dismantled; since December 6, 1938, the line has been considered a single lane. It was not electrified until December 4, 1953. At that time, it was planned to cease passenger traffic. The route via Läufelfingen remains because it can be used as an alternative line during construction work in the Hauenstein base tunnel.

Building and track system

Olten station concourse View from platforms 10–11 in west direction to the main building and post office
Central signal box in Olten from 1980
Olten train station from above in winter
Olten railway station from above at night

The main building is located on a wide island platform, which is framed by the post office building to the south and the service building to the north. Their platform roofs are built onto the building as a unit. To the east of the building, the mighty station roof spans two tracks in two arches, with a fifth track being protected. These five tracks (today track 7-11) on the east side had existed since the renovation in 1898/99. The sixth eastern track (then A6, now track 12) was put into operation on October 1, 1978 on the occasion of the station renovation. On the west side there were already five tracks, which, however, were not protected by a common station roof. Only today's platform 4 (formerly platform 5) had a longer platform roof. The four westernmost tracks had no real platform, two of them at least had a platform edge, which was only accessible by crossing tracks. For a long time, the closest thing to the city was the ramp track of the goods shed. On the occasion of the station renovation for the Bahn 2000 from 1996 to 2002, the middle track was removed and a middle platform was built in its place. The westernmost track (today track 1) was given an outside platform.

Today all 10 station tracks have their own platform edge and in the middle area also have weather protection. In that order from the west (away from the Aare); Outside platform, track 1 + 2 central platform, track 3 + 4, island platform with the buildings, track 7 + 8, central platform under the roof, track 9 + 10, central platform under the roof, track 11 + 12 outside platform.

A freight yard was built in the northeastern apron, but its drainage hill was leveled as early as 1927. Train dismantling will take place in the freight yard until the end of 2008. The Olten marshalling yard will be converted into a team yard at the end of 2008. So it will be handed over from SBB Infrastructure to SBB Cargo . A express freight station was opened between Däniken and Dulliken as early as 1977 (cargo domicile hall and parcel post hall). As both buildings are no longer used today exclusively in the original sense, the marshalling yard is Däniken completely take over the duties of rail yard Olten as a hub for cargo express trains per in 2009. This task was previously divided between both stations.

In the 1970s, a new marshalling yard was even planned, which would have been located in the area of ​​the Gösgen nuclear power plant in the area of ​​the communities Däniken and Gretzenbach . The planned construction date was 1978–1989, after the economic crisis of 1972/73 the project was postponed, but the land was acquired as far as possible. Construction never actually started, the land was released and sold again after 2000.

The platform height of 55 cm above the top edge of the rails (P55), which is required today for the Swiss standard gauge network, was raised gradually and was completed on the occasion of the renovation in 2008/09. The sales outlets on the Inselperron with the reception building were also improved, as the SBB want to implement in their new “More station” concept.

On March 1, 2015, the central operations center - located opposite the central signal box on the former site of the main workshop - went into operation. First she took over the tasks of the Mittelland sector (Solothurn, Rothrist, Gäu, Wasseramt). On March 15, the Aare sector followed, to which the Olten train station also belongs, and the southern section of the Südbahn sector. This was followed by the northern section of the Southern Railway on August 23, 2016, the Birs sector with the Basel node on September 6, 2016, the Gurten sector (Bern node) in November 2016, and finally the Pilatus sector on January 25, 2017 with the Lucerne node .

Workshop and depot

Vehicle parade in front of the east side of the Olten depot on the occasion of the open day on September 10, 2006

Due to the willingness of the city of Olten to make generous and extensive areas available, the SCB decided not only to set up a locomotive depot in Olten, but also to build a workshop that was responsible for the major maintenance of the rolling stock. The workshop was put into operation in 1855 and was located north of the passenger station, on the western side of the main line and the freight station on the left bank of the Aare. The depot itself was moved further north and is located opposite the actual freight yard.

The first workshop manager, Niklaus Riggenbach, turned the workshop into an actual industrial company that not only serviced locomotives but was also able to manufacture them itself. Freight and passenger cars were also designed - not only for the SCB, but also for other railway companies. In addition, bridges, transfer platforms and other railway equipment were built. The workshop was expanded in several stages. After the takeover by SBB, this workshop became the main workshop in Olten, which increasingly specialized in large-scale car maintenance. Today's Olten industrial plant is the only SBB industrial plant that is responsible for the major maintenance of passenger cars.

In the 1970s, this old workshop no longer met the requirements of a modern maintenance system, which is why the SBB decided to build a new functional main workshop in the Tannwald, the logical north-eastern continuation of the area. In doing so, she made sure that enough land reserves were available for any further expansion. On May 18, 1978, the topping-out ceremony took place at today's Wagenhalle Süd. The hall was inaugurated in the summer of 1979. The facility is accessed via a track curve along the exit of the old Hauenstein line.

At the end of the 1990s, the SBB Board of Directors decided to relocate all major passenger car maintenance to Olten and to close the HW Zurich due to the existing land reserves . After tendering and construction, the North Wagenhalle was inaugurated at the end of December 2003 and the new central building in May 2004. This new building allows all workshop parts that were still south of Industriestrasse in the old workshop area to be relocated. The SBB decided to give the area of ​​the "old" SCB workshop a conversion. Since there are some buildings from the founding time, resistance was raised against a haphazard demolition of the site. This resistance has been successful so far, a possible use of the area is still being discussed.

Immediately north of Industriestrasse was the former staff restaurant “Dampfhammer”. The historically valuable building had been converted into an event hall, which is why it was closed in mid-2008 and was rebuilt. However, on September 7, 2008, the building became a victim of an arsonist and burned to the ground. It is currently unclear whether and in what form it will be rebuilt.

A locomotive depot was built northeast of the passenger station. During the steam age, locomotives were usually changed in Olten. For the trains along the old Hauenstein were usually preload locomotives necessary, which were based here. The construction of the Hauenstein base tunnel did not yet have any major effects on the depot, the electrification of the routes Olten – Lucerne (February 23, 1924), Olten– Basel (May 18, 1924), Olten – Zurich (January 21, 1925), Olten - Bern (November 25, 1925) and Olten– Yverdon (December 23, 1927), however, did: An electric locomotive no longer has to be regularly supplied with water and coal and can travel a much longer distance in front of a train before it has to go to a depot . Since Olten was actually rarely the terminus of a long-distance train and there was no other operational necessity to change locomotives, locomotive changes subsequently were rather rare. Therefore, the depot was primarily used as a location for the traveling personnel.

Depot operations have been cut back substantially since the 1990s. The depot lost all long-distance passenger transport services and is now only a branch office for personnel on regional trains. The same thing happened in freight traffic, where last only LCN (local train driver) were stationed. With the closure of the marshalling yard, the closure of the cargo depot was also decided. There were only 4 in the G-Depot Olten! LCN hired all of them when this category was dissolved. A change in the workforce will not take place until the RB in Däniken closes, at the earliest in 2016 when the GBT opens. The future of the depot is therefore uncertain, although the storage of the historic locomotives will at least enable the facilities to be preserved. The Olten depot now also houses a branch of the SBB Historic and a number of operational rolling stock, especially electric locomotives. These are sent out on the route on a few days a year to avoid damage caused by downtime.

Routes

Overview of the routes around Olten train station

The Gäubahn was initially supposed to be introduced in a loop around the city from the north into the Olten station, which would have given Olten a second station in the northwest of the city. The SCB, however, wanted to make operations easier (the trains from Solothurn in the direction of Aarau and Basel would have had to turn heads in the first variant). The SCB was able to enforce its request, but was in return obliged to build a road bridge over the Aare “behind the current station building” (the predecessor of today's station bridge). Due to the introduction of the Gäulinie, the previous four-track station system had to be expanded. This was done by building additional tracks to the west of the station building, which received its current island location.

On May 9, 1926, the Olten connecting line, which was electrified from the start, was built northeast of the station. This allows trains from Basel to travel through the Hauenstein tunnel to Aarau without having to turn around at Olten station. Since that date there has been a line triangle northeast of the station.

On the occasion of the station renovation around 1980, a double-lane underpass structure was built in the north end of the station. This Tannwald tunnel enables trains to and from Basel to pass under the tracks to Aarau without crossing. However, a mistake was made here that was only corrected with the renovation in 1996-2000: The alternative route without crossing a tunnel only leads over a slow switch connection of the old Hauenstein line. The tunnel enabled the trains in the direction of Lucerne to have their own route away from the main Bern-Zurich tracks. The trains from Basel to Bern or Solothurn had to cross in the station area or take the slow route along the freight station. For this reason, today's platform 12 was built, where the trains to Lucerne usually stop. In general, all platform edges on the existing tracks 5, 7-11 (7-11 formerly tracks A1-A5) have been extended. The first track of the underpass structure was opened to traffic on May 4, 1980, the second on May 23, 1980.

The central signal box was also built, which replaced a total of five mechanical signal boxes from the years 1905–1926. The central signal box was put into operation between May 3rd and 5th, 1980. For this purpose, the north head had to be closed to all train traffic on Sat / Sun from 10:20 p.m. to 6:15 p.m. and the south head of the station the following night Sun / Mon. The new signal box in 1980 was designed as a track plan signal box with secured shunting routes in the area of ​​the passenger station. The Domino 67 interlocking was supplied by Integra and is installed as a panorama wall. It is located on the side of Tannwaldstrasse opposite the train station and towers above it in the direction of the train station in the form of a horse signal box. When it was put into operation, it controlled 158 main signals (including advance signals), 94 auxiliary signals (brake test, exit command, track number and letter signals ), 210 dwarf signals , 145 point machines and 17 automatic block sections. Without the station renovation in 1980, which was the 37th in the history of the station, the 1982 timetable could not have been introduced. On March 15, 2015 at 12 noon, operations management was handed over from the 35-year-old central signal box building to the central operations center on Gösgerstrasse in Olten. The signal box of the Olten train station and all the technical equipment is still in the old central signal box; the technology is controlled remotely from the operations center.

With the renovation of the station in the years 1996-2000, the introduction of the Gäulinie was expanded to double lanes, so that the trains to and from Oensingen can run on the west side of the station. This was possible before, but there was only one platform edge available on this side, which was then platform 5. The two old platforms 4 and 3 only had low and narrow platform edges that were accessible via rail crossings. This did not allow more than one passenger train to be processed on the Aare side of the station at the same time. The old track 2 was the access and through track of the freight trains from Biel towards the freight station and further on. The old track 1 was the ramp track of the goods shed; this was demolished after 1980, but the track itself could not be used as a real station track. The former tracks 4 and 5 became the new tracks 3 and 4, only at the two ends of the switches were visible adjustments made to the position of the tracks. Track 3 was removed and a real central platform was created at this point. On tracks 1 and 2, the central area was shifted a little towards the Aare, and there were also adjustments to the two turnout heads. Track 1 was given an outside platform, which in the middle section also serves as a bus stop on the side facing away from the track.

The existing southern underpass was renewed and adapted to the new conditions. It also leads under the Bahnhofquai, so that pedestrians can get to the station bridge without crossing the street. Before this conversion, the northern underpass only connected tracks 7-11. It was extended towards the Aare so that it can now also be used as a passage towards the old town. Two additional tracks were built in the north end of the station. A sixth through track was built along the freight station, as well as between the previous mainline tracks to Zurich and Basel. A third through track towards Aarau-Zurich was built above the Tannwald tunnel. For this a short tunnel gallery had to be created so that the Nagelfluh of the Hardwald remains stable.

Operational

The station is a hub and accordingly lively. Of the passenger trains, only the non-stop IC Bern – Zurich run through, the others stop. The Basel – Zurich and Lucerne – Bern – Lausanne – Genève trains circumnavigate the Olten station using connecting lines.

Long-distance transport

Regional traffic

bus

Bahnhofplatz is the bus hub in the city of Olten, where the stops of the urban and regional lines of the Olten Gösgen Gäu bus company and a PostBus line are located.

Accident on October 6, 2011

The Re 4/4, which had an accident on October 6, 2011, hit a catenary mast.

On October 6, 2011, came EW-II - shuttle with a Re 4/4 II, in addition to the half hour the train reversed from Basel to Olten, at the entrance to the station with a NPZ shuttle laterally. The NPZ Sissach – Läufelfingen – Olten had passed a signal indicating a stop. The locomotive Re 4/4 II 11184 and the first two cars of the EW-II shuttle train tipped over to the side. The engine driver of the Re 4/4 II was seriously injured and one passenger was slightly injured. The ZUB train control system installed at the time of the accident was not yet in operation.

swell

literature

  • Report from RP; Railway buildings in the area of ​​Olten Railway Amateur 5/81 pages 281–285.
  • Adolf Merz: The forgotten "0-point monument" . In: Oltner Neujahrsblätter, Volume 14, 1956, pp. 25-27.

Web links

Commons : Olten railway station  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Important transfer station in the center of Switzerland. (No longer available online.) Swiss Federal Railways, archived from the original on November 16, 2008 ; Retrieved November 19, 2008 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / mct.sbb.ch
  2. ↑ Especially because of the freight trains that most Zurich stations lack. 1977: 1040 daily trains (number 2 of the SBB to Zurich HB with 1205)
  3. ↑ The level area was only created between 1912 and 1916, as the excavation of the Hauenstein base tunnel was deposited here
  4. ↑ Fred von Niederhäusern, Reto Danuser: Olten - Swiss hub. From the Swiss Central Railway to Railway 2000. Minirex, Lucerne 1997, ISBN 3-907014-09-X , p. 124.
  5. ↑ SBB Newsletter 11/1978
  6. ↑ Commissioning in spring 1977, SBB newsletter 1/1977
  7. ↑ In the new SBB operations center there is room for 120 employees , Solothurner Zeitung
  8. ↑ SBB newsletter 06/1978
  9. ↑ Olten: Major fire destroys “steam hammer”. feuerwehr-olten.ch, accessed on June 3, 2011 .
  10. ↑ SBB Newsletter 1/1977
  11. ↑ EA 5/91 page 282
  12. ↑ Before that there were 36 renovation and expansion stages
  13. ^ Mathias Rellstab: Another signal case resulting in an accident at the SBB . In: Swiss Railway Review . No. 11 . Minirex, 2011, ISSN  1022-7113 , p. 536-537 .