Railway line Bern – Lucerne

Lucerne – Bern
RegioExpress the BLS during the passage in Malters
Timetable field :	460
Gauge :	1435 mm ( standard gauge )
Power system :	15 kV 16.7 Hz  ~
Legend from Freiburg 106.13 Bern to Solothurn Red bridge Lorraine Viaduct 1080 m 103.33 108.58 108.98 Bern Wankdorf 109.48 to Olten 110.77 Ostermundigen Quarry RBS from Bern 113.96 Gümligen 113.96 7.69 RBS to Worb Dorf 8.93 to Thun 12.99 Worb SBB 17.22 Tagertschi from Thun 20.53 Konolfingen to Burgdorf 24.34 Zziwil 27.28 Bowil 30.37 Signau 34.09 Emmenmatt Schnurtobel Bridge 80 m Emmental Railway from Burgdorf 34.73 Obermatt 37.47 Langnau 43.13 Trubschachen 48.27 Wigging Wiggen tunnel 40 m 52.19 Escholzmatt Waldemme Bridge near Schüpfheim 32 m 60.07 Schüpfheim 64.14 Hasle LU 66.37 Entlebuch LU Wilzigen tunnel 250 m Entlenstalden tunnel 80 m Upper Schachtli tunnel 44 m Lower Schachtli tunnel 96 m 70.74 Doppleschwand - Romoos Wolhusen tunnel 150 m Small Emme Bridge near Wolhusen 45 m from Langenthal 74.36 Wolhusen Werthenstein tunnel 30 m 76.15 Werthenstein Small Emme Bridge near Werthenstein 45 m 80.14 Schachen 83.15 Malters 89.21 Littau Zimmereregg tunnel 1133 m von Rotkreuz and von Olten 92.73 Gütsch from Immensee Gütsch tunnel 326 m 93.33 Heimbach Schönheim tunnel 199 m from Interlaken Ost 95.05 Lucerne

The Bern – Lucerne railway is a partially double-track , electrified railway line through Entlebuch . The main section between Langnau and Gütsch near Lucerne was opened on August 11, 1875.

history

Share in the Bern-Luzern Railway Company (Bern-Luzern-Bahn) from September 20, 1873

In 1857 the Swiss Ostwestbahn planned a continuous line La Neuveville - Biel - Bern - Gümligen - Langnau - Lucerne - Zug - Zurich with a branch from Zug to Rapperswil , which the line should have been part of. Since construction had started without secured funding, the company went bankrupt. The Canton of Bern took over the Bernese parts of the line and had it completed. On June 1, 1864, the Gümligen - Langnau section was opened by the Bern State Railways . In 1875 the Bern-Lucerne Railway (BLB) took over the section and opened the remaining section between Gütsch near Lucerne and Langnau on August 11th. Continuous operation between Bern and Lucerne was now possible. However, due to excessive construction costs, SU became insolvent, so that in 1877 it was bought up again by the canton of Bern as the main creditor of SU, which entrusted the Chemins de fer du Jura bernois (JB) with the management. From 1882, the Bern – Lucerne line was leased by JB, which changed its name to Jura – Bern – Lucerne (JBL) in 1884 . In 1890, JLB finally merged with the newly founded Jura-Simplon-Bahn (JS), which also acquired the Bern – Lucerne line from the Canton of Bern. With the nationalization of the JS in 1902, the Bern – Lucerne line came to the Swiss Federal Railways (SBB).

After the sections Bern – Gümligen, Obermatt – Langnau and Gütsch – Lucerne had been electrified as part of other railway lines in 1919 and 1924, respectively, most of the line was electrified on August 15, 1934. When the timetable changed on December 12, 2004, the new double-lane sections between Worb SBB – Tägertschi, Konolfingen –Zezziwil and Bowil – Emmenmatt went into operation in order to establish the hourly Bern – Lucerne service on this line.

Accidents

On October 17, 1943, the station director in Schüpfheim set the entry point under the penultimate car of a passing Lucerne – Bern express train . The two cars derailed and hit the locomotive of the opposite train waiting for the train to cross . The two cars were badly damaged, six people died and around fifty passengers were injured, some seriously.

→ Main article : Schüpfheim railway accident

On April 21, 1952, at the Obermatt service station between Emmenmatt and Langnau, a head-on collision occurred between a freight train of the Emmental-Burgdorf-Thun-Bahn (EBT) hauled by the Be 4/4 105 and the Ae 3/6 II 10424 locomotive SBB. Due to poor visibility, the vehicles collided with each other with full force. The locomotive driver of the freight train was killed, and his colleague from SBB was able to save himself by jumping off the machine. Four train attendants were injured.

On August 30, 1979, near Littau, a train pulled by an Ae 4/7 collided with the RBe 4/4 1461. Eight people were injured.

business

On the route, the S 2 of the Bern S-Bahn between Bern and Langnau runs every half hour and the S 6 of the Lucerne S-Bahn between Lucerne and Langnau every hour, the latter is part of a wing train , the other part of the train runs from Wolhusen to Langenthal. The RegioExpress also runs every hour between Lucerne and Bern, consisting of a Lötschberger multiple unit ( Ra535 ). Since December 2016, the Regioexpress in Wolhusen has been flying the S7 from Langenthal in order to establish a second direct connection to Lucerne without changing trains. The operational operation of all three lines has been the responsibility of BLS AG since the timetable change in 2010 , previously the S6 was operated jointly by BLS and SBB. Until the timetable change in 2004, SBB InterRegio trains ran every two hours from Lucerne to Bern and on to Geneva Airport , they stopped in Wolhusen, Langnau and Konolfingen, and on the edge of the day also in Schüpfheim. These trains have been running via Zofingen and the new Mattstetten – Rothrist line since 2004 in order to keep the travel time between Bern and Lucerne at 60 minutes. Then the RegioExpress was introduced as a replacement.

literature

• Placid Weissenbach: The Swiss Railway System, Vol. 1, Zurich 1913.

Web links

• http://www.bahndaten.ch/content/bahnen-detail/30/bern-luzern-bahn

Individual evidence

1. ^ Franz Eberhard, Hansruedi Gonzenbach: Fascination Ae 3/6 II . MFO - express train locomotive of the SBB: The original and its replicas (=  Loki-Spezial ). Fachpresse Zürich, Zürich 2004, ISBN 3-9522945-1-9 , p. 82 .
2. ↑ Bruno Lämmli: SBB CFF FFS Ae 4/7 No. 10'901 - 11'027. Operational use. Retrieved October 18, 2013 .