Lyss – Solothurn railway line

Lyss – Solothurn
Lyss – Solothurn railway line between Rüti bei Büren and Büren an der Aare
Timetable field :	291
Route length:	24.3 km
Gauge :	1435 mm ( standard gauge )
Power system :	16 2/3 Hz, 15 kV  ~
Legend from Bern and from Kerzers Lyss 101.8 Busswil to Biel / Bienne 99.2 Dotzigen 95.7 Büren on the Aare 94.2 Hauptstrasse 22 (bridge in need of renovation) Rüti 91.0 Arch 88.2 Leuzigen 84.2 Lüsslingen from Burgdorf from Biel / Bienne and from Moutier 80.3 Solothurn to Olten

The Lyss – Solothurn railway is a standard-gauge railway in Switzerland. Rail traffic has ceased on the Büren an der Aare - Solothurn section . The infrastructure belongs to the SBB , while the BLS is responsible for the scheduled passenger traffic.

history

opening

The first section of the line, between Lyss and Busswil , was opened in 1864 when the Bernische Staatsbahn opened it to traffic as part of today's Biel / Bienne – Bern line , which was part of the La Neuveville – Biel – Bern – Langnau state highway when it opened . At the end of 1876, the Busswil – Solothurn line went into operation at the same time as the Gäubahn (Olten – Solothurn). Often the Lyss – Solothurn line is also counted as part of the Gäubahn due to the common opening date, but this is controversial as the trains were always tied to Herzogenbuchsee .

Nationalization, accident in 1929

In 1902 the line came into the possession of the SBB, but since 2004, after a major swap between regional and long-distance traffic in the Bern area, BLS has been responsible for traffic on the line.

On September 9, 1929, an empty military extra train collided with a passenger train near Lüsslingen due to a misunderstanding about the location of the train crossing , injuring around 70 people.

Closure of Büren – Solothurn

In 1994, passenger traffic on the Büren an der Aare – Solothurn section was shut down and switched to bus operation because the number of passengers was unsatisfactory in the eyes of SBB. The overhead contact line has been dismantled, but the tracks are completely in place with one short exception in the Büren station. The route from Solothurn to Arch is still used for connecting trips, but continuous operation is no longer possible due to the installation of two fixed buffer stops and the short missing track section in the Büren station. The section of the line was officially shut down by the federal government in 2003. In that year the buffer stop was built in Büren, which marks the end of the line from Lyss. The club steam train Bern led since then by on the disused section of Büren to Solothurn public trips by steam trains. However, since a review of the underpass of Hauptstrasse 22 at the entrance to the village of Büren found that the railway bridge is in poor condition, this will no longer be possible from 2016: The SBB are not interested in a renovation and the Steam Railway Association Bern does not have that necessary money to bear the costs of several 100,000 francs.

While the canton of Solothurn welcomed the change due to the better accessibility of the buses from the villages, the canton of Bern and the Swiss Transport Club appealed against the initially temporary change. The proposal worked out by both institutions was to extend the route of the Oensingen-Balsthal-Bahn from Oensingen via Gäubahn via Solothurn and Büren to Lyss.

traffic

At the opening time, the trains to the Solothurn – Herzogenbuchsee railway line were tied through. After this was converted to the upgraded Solothurn – Wanzwil line without regional traffic, the train run is no longer possible. Instead, the BLS runs regional trains between Büren and Lyss every hour, with additional trains during rush hour. In Lyss there is a connection to the RegioExpress trains to Biel , Bern and the Regio to Kerzers.

useful information

• In Büren station there is only one track, but two buffer stops: one forms the end of the railway line from Kerzers – Lyss, the other is in the opposite direction from Solothurn, only a few meters from the one from Lyss. There are no longer any rails between the two buffer stops, only the access route to the platform.
• For safety reasons, only one train can be on the Busswil – Büren line (including the Büren train station).

Individual evidence

1. ^ Railway line Solothurn - Lyss 1876. at: bauservice-public.ch
2. ^ Railway line Biel / Bienne - Olten. to: schienenverkehr-schweiz.ch
3. ^ Results of the accident statistics for the third five-year observation period 1928–1932. (PDF, 2.5 MB) Swiss Accident Insurance Fund, accessed on October 18, 2013 . 
4. ^ Etzwilen - Ramsen and Büren a. A. - Solothurn officially closed. ( Memento from February 9, 2012 in the Internet Archive )
5. ↑ Public trips . Steam Railway Association Bern. Retrieved June 28, 2014.
6. ↑ Safety not guaranteed: Dampftag no longer takes place , in Solothurner Zeitung, May 19, 2015
7. ↑ A railway-technical curiosity.  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 1.5 MB) In: Panorama. 2/2008, p. 18f.  

Web links

Commons : Lyss – Solothurn railway line  - collection of images, videos and audio files