Olten – Aarau railway line

Olten-Aarau
Timetable field :	650, 650.1
Route length:	13.40 km
Gauge :	1435 mm ( standard gauge )
Power system :	15 kV 16.7 Hz  ~
Maximum slope :	10.0  ‰
Legend from Bern , Solothurn and Lucerne 39.3 Olten 396.4  m above sea level M. from / to Basel Four lane route 42.9 Dulliken 394.1  m above sea level M. Three-lane route 45.7 Daniken 381.6  m above sea level M. Double track line 48.1 Schönwerd 378.8  m above sea level M. 50.8 43.4 Wöschnau lane change, now four lanes Aarau city tunnel from Schöftland 41.5 Aarau 383.3 m above sea level N. to Suhr-Menziken to Zurich via Baden and to Zurich via Lenzburg

The Olten – Aarau railway line is a railway line in northern Switzerland . It leads from Olten along the Aare to Aarau .

Routing

The railway line leaves Olten station first to the north, then swiveling in a wide curve to the southeast towards Dulliken. The route then continues mainly northeast along the Aare . Part of the urban area of ​​Aarau is crossed by the Aarau city tunnel, which is followed by the Aarau train station . With the exception of the city tunnel mentioned, there are no major engineering structures.

The two routes to Basel ( Hauenstein-Scheiteltunnel and Hauenstein-Basistunnel ) branch off north of Olten ; From the base tunnel route, the route towards Aarau can also be reached directly via the connecting curve.

Between Dulliken and Däniken, to the south of the railway line, there is the extensive track system of a former mail distribution center and a former SBB freight facility that is now privately operated as a Cargo Service Center.

history

In the 19th century, the still young federal state left the organization of the railways to the cantons, which in turn licensed construction and operation to private railroad companies. While the cantons of Zurich and Aargau wanted to lead the connection between Zurich and Basel either via the Bötzberg (variant Aargau) or via Waldshut and further on the German side of the Rhine (variant Zurich), Basel advocated a railway junction in Olten, from which routes to Basel, Zurich, Lucerne, Bern and Biel should go out. This was also the recommendation of an expert opinion drawn up in 1850 by the well-known English railway engineers Robert Stephenson and Henry Swinburne .

The Zurich variant was not carried out (at least for the time being) because financial problems arose after the completion of the Spanish bread roll. The Aargau variant (Bözbergbahn) failed because the canton of Basel-Land refused the necessary concession.

The Centralbahn was established in Basel in order to realize the Basel concept of a railway network, which actually succeeded. In particular, Centralbahn received the concession for the Olten - Wöschnau line on the Solothurn-Aarau canton border, but not for the remaining short section from Wöschnau to Aarau itself. This, as well as the further route in an easterly direction to Zurich, was awarded to the Swiss Northern Railway , which now operated the Zurich – Baden route.

The Centralbahn then built the line from Olten to the gates of Aarau, which was put into operation on June 9, 1856. However, since the north-east railway with the route from Baden was far from being that far, a provisional train station was built in Schachen Aarau. Only after the Nordostbahn had built the Aarau city tunnel - the line from Baden had meanwhile also reached Aarau - continuous operation from Olten – Aarau – Zurich was now possible from June 1858.

A few years later the line was expanded, and the Olten – Zurich dual-track operation was possible from July 16, 1872. The electrification with the 15 kV 16 2/3 Hz system common at SBB was put into operation on January 21, 1925. Until the nationalization of the large private railway companies to the SBB, the Centralbahn was responsible for the operation of the line.

In the 1990s, the tracks at Aarau station were completely rebuilt. In particular, the western approach was extended to four lanes, and a second city tunnel was built. The further course of the route to Däniken is still two-lane, however, this is a major bottleneck in east-west traffic. A four-lane expansion through Schönenwerd is unthinkable because of the dense development. In 2015, construction work began on the Eppenberg tunnel to bypass Schönenwerd. Commissioning is scheduled for the end of 2020.

Accidents

On August 24, 1962 at the railway station collided Schönenwerd an agency train Basel - Aarau - Arth-Goldau - Chiasso with the last car of a freight train outgoing. Two people died and two were injured.

On March 21, 1994, a rail crane near Däniken slashed seven wagons of the passing Brig - Romanshorn express train sideways at window height. Nine passengers were killed and 21 others were injured, some seriously.

literature

• Hans G. Wägli: Swiss Rail Network . Bern 1980.
• Plazid Weissenbach : The railway system in Switzerland . Zurich 1913.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Communication from SBB dated November 24, 2015
2. ↑ Collision de trains à Schœnenwerd: un mort. (Le Temps - archives historiques) (No longer available online.) Journal de Genève, Genève, August 25, 1962, p. 18 , archived from the original on December 2, 2013 ; Retrieved November 15, 2013 (French). 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.  
3. ^ Federal court on the accident in Däniken . In: Swiss Railway Review . No. 4 . Minirex, 2000, ISSN  1022-7113 , pp. 154 .