Montreux – Lenk railway in the Simmental

Montreux – Lenk in the Simmental

Timetable field :

120

Route length:

75.03 km

Gauge :

1000 mm ( meter gauge )

Power system :

900 V =

Maximum slope :

73 ‰

Legend

0.1	Montreux	396 m above sea level M.
	Transition to the Lausanne - Brig and
	Glion - Rochers de Naye
	Montreux (184 m)
0.7	College	430 m above sea level M.
1.0	Vuarennes	445 m above sea level M.
1.5	Belmont-sur-Montreux	465 m above sea level M.
1.8	Collondalles	476 m above sea level M.
2.2	Châtelard VD	500 m above sea level M.
	A9 (110 m)
2.7	Planchamp	523 m above sea level M.
	by Clarens (until 1955)
	(82 m)

	after Blonay (until 1955)
3.3	Fontanivent	560 m above sea level M.
4.3	Chernex	600 m above sea level M.
5.5	Sonzier	655 m above sea level M.
7.2	Chamby ( wedge station )	748 m above sea level M.
7.2	after Blonay
	Chamby (314 m)
9.2	Sendy-Sollard	870 m above sea level M.
	Pont Gardiol over the Bois des Chenaux (93 m)
10.9	Les Avants	970 m above sea level M.
	Transfer to the funicular to Sonloup
	Les Avants (153 m)
	Râpes-de-Jor I (45 m)
	Râpes-de-Jor II (17 m)
	Râpes-de-Jor III (23 m)
	Râpes-de-Jor IV (64 m)
	Râpes-de-Jor V (25 m)
	Râpes-de-Jor VI (33 m)
12.6	Jor	1084 m above sea level M.
	Jaman (2424 m)
15.2	Les Cases	1111 m above sea level M.
17.0	Allières	1006 m above sea level M.
	Gîtes (76 m)
	Botze (40 m)
	Flon (45 m)
20.4	Les Sciernes	882 m above sea level M.
	Sciernes (52 m)
	Hongrin (45 m)
	Montbovon (162 m)
22.1	from bull
22.1	Montbovon	797 m above sea level M.
	Tine (161 m)
25.0	La Tine	850 m above sea level M.
	Lauciau (46 m)
28.2	Rossinière	891 m above sea level M.
29.4	La Chaudanne- Les Moulins	886 m above sea level M.
	Chaudanne (190 m)
32.7	Château-d'Oex	965 m above sea level M.
33.5	La Palaz	980 m above sea level M.
34.6	Les Granges (Château-d'Oex)	997 m above sea level M.
36.1	Les Combes from 1933	994 m above sea level M.
	Flendruz (118 m)
37.4	Flendruz	980 m above sea level M.
	Rougemont (98 m)
39.3	Rougemont	992 m above sea level M.
	Vanel (61 m)

40.57	Vanel 1935-1982
	Vanel (473 m) (opening June 9, 1991)

43.2	Saanen BE	1011 m above sea level M.
45.6	Gstaad	1050 m above sea level M.
	Grubenbach (109 m)
48.1	Pits	1140 m above sea level M.
50.7	Schönried	1230 m above sea level M.
52.9	Saanenmöser	1269 m above sea level M.
	Saanenmöser (90 m)
	Kaltenbrunnen (165 m)
56.6	Oeschseite	1151 m above sea level M.
59.5	Hold	1057 m above sea level M.
	Moosbach (458 m)
	Moosbach (62 m)
62.2	Zweisimmen	941 m above sea level M.
	Transition to the Spiez-Erlenbach-Zweisimmen lift
63.9	Blankenburg	957 m above sea level M.
66.8	Stöckli	967 m above sea level M.
68.6	St. Stephan	996 m above sea level M.
70.7	Mats	1023 m above sea level M.
73.6	ground	1037 m above sea level M.
75.1	Lenk	1068 m above sea level M.

The Montreux – Lenk railway in the Simmental is a meter- gauge narrow - gauge railway in Switzerland . It is operated by the Montreux – Bernese Oberland Railway (MOB) and connects Montreux on Lake Geneva via Les Avants , Montbovon , Rossinière , Château-d'Oex , Rougemont , Saanen , Gstaad and Zweisimmen with Lenk . It runs through the cantons of Vaud , Friborg and Bern . The GoldenPassLine operates on the Montreux – Zweisimmen section .

history

In the 1890s efforts began for a rail link along the Alpine traversal from Montreux to Lucerne . The canton of Bern took the first step with the construction of a line from Spiez to Erlenbach , which was opened in August 1897. In contrast to the plans in the Canton of Vaud, the Bernese side opted for a standard gauge line . The Simmental Railway was extended to Zweisimmen in 1902, where the railway line discussed here was supposed to connect to Lake Geneva.

On April 16, 1898, the Federal Assembly granted the concession for the route from Montreux to Montbovon, construction work began in 1900. The first section was the mountain route from Montreux via Chamby up to Les Avants in 1901 . There follows a top tunnel and the descent to Montbovon, which was opened in 1903. On December 22, 1899, the concession from Montbovon to Zweisimmen was also granted, but without the Montbovon train station. From there the MOB follows the course of the Saane up to Saanen and Gstaad (opened in 1904), then over the Saanenmöser down to Zweisimmen, which was reached in 1905. On March 30, 1906, the MOB received the concession for the Zweisimmen – Lenk line, but had to obtain an extension of the deadline for the start of construction until the end of 1910 due to financial difficulties. Construction work began in April 1910 and the line was opened on June 8, 1912. Direct trains are only possible via a hairpin in Zweisimmen station, but were offered in different timetable periods.

Start of operations
section	date
Montreux - Les Avants	December 12, 1901
Les Avants - Montbovon	0October 1, 1903
Montbovon - Château-d'Oex	August 19, 1904
Château-d'Oex - Gstaad	December 20, 1904
Gstaad - Zweisimmen	0July 6, 1905
Zweisimmen - Lenk	0June 8, 1912

The route via Gstaad was not originally planned by the MOB, as Gstaad was to be connected to the railway line from Aigle via Les Diablerets and Pillon to Saanen. However, since its construction was delayed, Gstaad asked the MOB to include it in the line. The railway line from Aigle was not completed later, but ended as Chemin de fer Aigle-Sépey-Diablerets (ASD) in Les Diablerets. The planned continuation of the Zweisimmen-Lenk route through the Rawil to Sion was also never realized .

Train performance on the route

Services that are provided on the route are mainly regional trains in the Montreux area:

Regio with stops at all stations from Montreux to Les Avants .
Regio with stops in Montreux , (Fontanivent), Chernex , ( Sonzier ), (Chamby), (Sendy-Sollard), Les Avants , ( Jor ), (Les Cases), (Allières), (Les Sciernes) and Montbovon . All stops in brackets are stops on request.
InterRegio with stops in Montreux , Chernex , Chamby, Les Avants and Montbovon . GoldenPass and GoldenPassPanoramic trains
Regio with stops at all stations from Montbovon to Zweisimmen .
InterRegio with stops in Montbovon , Rossinière , Château-d'Oex , Rougemont , Saanen , Gstaad , Schönried , Saanenmöser and Zweisimmen . GoldenPass and GoldenPassPanoramic trains
Regio with stops at all stations from Zweisimmen to Lenk i. Simmental

Connecting lines

Fontanivent station, this is where the former Clarens-Chailly-Blonay railway branched off

In Chamby, the former route of the Chemins de fer électriques Veveysans (CEV) branches off to Blonay . Since the CEV's passenger traffic was discontinued in 1966, the Blonay – Chamby museum railway has been operating regular nostalgic traffic on summer weekends. The route is still owned by Transports Montreux – Vevey – Riviera , the successor company to CEV.

In Montbovon station there is a connection to the network of Transports publics fribourgeois (TPF), formerly Chemins de fer fribourgeois Gruyère – Friborg – Morat (GFM), previously Chemins de fer Electriques de la Gruyère (CEG), which owns the depot workshop in Montbovon and who occasionally exchanges rolling stock with the MOB. During the construction of both lines, a solid dispute arose between the Friborg initiators of this line and the MOB, which was ruled by the Vaud and Bernese. For their part, the Freiburg-based company submitted a license application for the construction of a railway to Zweisimmen; they wanted to run continuous trains from Bulle, possibly from Vevey, via Montbovon to Zweisimmen, and take cars passing through from Montbovon from Montreux. The Federal Railway Department therefore negotiated an agreement on June 23, 1899 with the two initiative committees and the cantonal governments concerned. Since the government of Bern and Vaud supported the Montreux committee, the Freiburg residents agreed to waive the concession, but were given the right to build the Montbovon train station (which still belongs to the TPF today). The federal representatives still left open who should get ownership of the short stretch from Montbovon to the canton border in front of La Tine . The license application of the Friborg initiators envisaged a tram, that of the Vaudois initiators a train on its own track. The Federal Council asked the Federal Parliament to grant the concession “from Montbovon or from the cantonal border” to Zweisimmen, so that the two companies would have to contractually agree on whether one or the other route would be built. In any case, the concession obliged the MOB to build the line in such a way that the vehicles of the Gruyère railways could run on it. The two companies were thus obliged to use the same standards. Finally, in a contract dated March 12, 1907, regulating the merger of the lines of the MOB and the CEG, it was stated that the property line was 117 m outside the entry point at Château-d'Oex and that the CEG waived its concession for the subsequent line .

The Simmentalbahn operated by BLS AG runs from Zweisimmen to Spiez and provides connections to Interlaken , Lucerne , Brig and Bern .

Buildings

The originally 298 meter long Moosbach tunnel was replaced in 1984 by an adjacent 458 meter long new tunnel. This new section was opened on November 14, 1984. This has an expanded profile, so that even shameful standard gauge wagons can be transported through it.

The completely rebuilt and renewed Gstaad station went into operation on June 12, 2009.

literature

Michel Grandguillaume, Gérald Hadorn, Sébastien Jarne and Jean-Louis Rochaix: Chemin de fer Montreux Oberland Bernois. Du Léman au Pays-d'Enhaut , Volume 1. Bureau vaudois d'adresses (BVA), Lausanne 1992, ISBN 2-88125-008-4
Michel Grandguillaume, Gérald Hadorn, Sébastien Jarne and Jean-Louis Rochaix: Chemin de fer Montreux Oberland Bernois, Du Léman au Pays-d'Enhaut , Volume 2. Bureau vaudois d'adresses (BVA), Lausanne 1994, ISBN 2-88125- 009-2
75 years of MOB, 75 years of MOB, 1901–1976 . (Bilingual: French and German), Chemin de fer Montreux-Oberland Bernois (MOB), Montreux, 1976, without ISBN.
Edward W. Paget Tomlinson, Roger Kaller and Pierre Stauffer: The Montreux-Berner Oberland Railway, Le Montreux-Oberland Bernois, The Montreux-Oberland Bernois Railway . (Trilingual: English, French and German), Chemin de fer Montreux-Oberland Bernois (MOB), Montreux, 1985, without ISBN.
Jean-Michel Hartmann: Magic of MOB, Magic of MOB . (Bilingual: French and German), Ott Verlag, Thun, 1985. ISBN 3-7225-6331-3

Web links

Commons : Montreux – Lenk railway line in the Simmental - collection of images, videos and audio files

Goldenpass services

Individual evidence

↑ Michel Grandguillaume et al .: MOB, du Léman au Pays-d'Enhaut *. BVA, Lausanne 1992, ISBN 2-88125-008-4 , page 51
↑ Message from the Federal Council to the Federal Assembly regarding the concession of an electric railway from Montbovon, or from the canton border there, via Château-d'Oex and Saanen to Zweisimmen. (From December 7th, 1899.) Location: Federal Gazette No. 50 of December 13th, 1899
↑ EA 9/83 page 582
↑ EA 7/2009 page 345

Remarks

↑ Due to the tight curves, axle loads and the clearance profile on the adjacent routes, it is not possible to use all UIC freight wagons on roller brackets (EA 2/84 page 84)

[1] Michel Grandguillaume et al .: MOB, du Léman au Pays-d'Enhaut *. BVA, Lausanne 1992, ISBN 2-88125-008-4 , page 51

[2] Message from the Federal Council to the Federal Assembly regarding the concession of an electric railway from Montbovon, or from the canton border there, via Château-d'Oex and Saanen to Zweisimmen. (From December 7th, 1899.) Location: Federal Gazette No. 50 of December 13th, 1899

[3] EA 9/83 page 582

[5] EA 7/2009 page 345

[4] Due to the tight curves, axle loads and the clearance profile on the adjacent routes, it is not possible to use all UIC freight wagons on roller brackets (EA 2/84 page 84)