Olten – Lucerne railway line

Olten – Lucerne
Timetable field :	510
Route length:	55.6 km
Gauge :	1435 mm ( standard gauge )
Power system :	15 kV 16.67 Hz  ~
Maximum slope :	17  ‰
Legend from Aarau and Basel 39.29 Olten to Solothurn – Biel 40.45 to the NBS and to Bern Aarburg 87 m 43.01 Aarburg - Oftringen from / to Bern 44.00 Aarburg South from Wettingen 47.46 Zofingen 50.48 Brittnau - Wikon 52.99 Reiden 55.80 Dagmersellen 58.74 Nebikon Egolzwil 17 m 62.52 Wauwil 66.80 St. Erhard-Knutwil ST from Triengen Passenger traffic ceased 69.04 Sursee 71.17 Oberkirch 73.78 Nottwil 78.99 Sempach - Neuenkirch 84.55 Rothenburg 87.00 Rothenburg village from Lenzburg since 1998 88.45 Hübeli 89.16 Emmenbrücke Gersag 90.19 Emmenbrücke 90.19 to Lenzburg until 1998 90.53 Reusszopf bridges north 40 m 90.90 Reusszopf bridges south 45 m 91.82 abstract 91.82 from Bern via Langnau 91.82 Fluhmühle from Immensee 92.85 Gütsch Gütsch 326 m 93.36 Heimbach Schönheim 199 m from Kriens from Interlaken Ost 95.09 Lucerne

The Olten – Lucerne railway is a double-track electrified main line in Switzerland and is part of the north-south axis over the Gotthard Pass . It is owned by SBB and is used by long-distance and regional trains.

history

The Olten – Emmenbrücke section was opened by the Swiss Central Railway (SCB) on June 9, 1856, when it began operating its route from Aarau to Emmenbrücke. While the city of Zofingen liked to see the junction of the north-south and east-west axes at its station, the SCB decided to create it in Olten station. Initially, the Basel – Lucerne route was also examined via Aarau – Lenzburg and the Seetal to Emmenbrücke. The extension to Lucerne finally followed in 1859. The electrification was carried out continuously on February 23, 1924. The double-track expansion, however, was carried out in several stages. The SCB expanded the Olten – Aarburg-Oftringen line to double track as early as 1858, because this section also belongs to the Olten – Bern line . From 1908 to 1939, the entire route from Olten to the Gütsch service station was expanded in sections, the entrance to the Lucerne train station did not follow until 1969 - note that today, despite the double lane, there is still a busy bottleneck. With the introduction of Bahn 2000 and the Lucerne S-Bahn , the importance of the route increased again. In order to accelerate and consolidate the InterRegio trains Lucerne – Bern – Geneva, which previously ran through the Emmental, they should be run via Zofingen and the new Mattstetten – Rothrist line. To do this, it was necessary to reactivate the war loop as a bypass of Olten and avoid a hairpin at Olten station - after a construction period of around 15 months, it was opened to traffic by a timetable change in December 2004. The S-Bahn-Luzern also provided better local transport services.

Accidents

On Whit Monday, May 30th 1898, a group of railway employees of the Centralbahn (SCB) who were busy with track work was run over by a passenger train of the Nordostbahn (NOB) at the southern exit of the Gütschtunnel near Lucerne . Seven railway workers were killed instantly and four seriously injured.

On December 13, 1932, the Lucerne – Arth-Goldau regional train collided with the Stuttgart - Zurich – Lucerne international express train in the Gütschtunnel. Six people were killed and over ten injured. Smoke from a steam locomotive driving a freight train in the direction of Olten restricted the view of a signal indicating a stop. The express train from Zurich had run over this signal and thus caused the accident.
→ Main article: Railway accident in Lucerne

business

In freight traffic, the route is particularly important because of the numerous sidings of industrial companies, transit freight trains on the north-south axis with the destination Basel bypass the Lucerne and Olten stations via the Aargauische Südbahn and Bözberg line . There is a very dense range of services in passenger transport. In long-distance traffic, the ICN / EC Basel SBB – Lucerne – Gotthard – Lugano (–Milan) and the IR Basel SBB – Lucerne – Gotthard – Locarno run every two hours and thus overlap at an hourly rate. They have operated between Olten and Lucerne without stopping since 2008, and between 2005 and 2008 they also stopped in Sursee and Zofingen. InterRegio trains run every hour between Basel SBB and Lucerne, they stop in Olten, Zofingen and Sursee. The InterRegio trains Geneva – Bern – Lucerne with stops in Zofingen and Sursee are also run every hour. Between Zofingen and Lucerne, both interregional lines run every half hour. Since these two long-distance trains are linked in their circulation in order to reduce the idle time in Lucerne from 60 to 30 minutes (circulations Geneva – Lucerne – Basel – Lucerne – Geneva), the same rolling stock is used. In general, these are push-pull trains with Re 460 , NBS-compatible standard car IV and control car. Mainly because of capacity problems in the trains from Lucerne to Geneva, IC2000 double-decker push-pull trains with Re 460 are also used at times of high frequency, which also run to Basel due to the circulation. A pair of RegioExpress trains runs hourly throughout the regional service, especially to better connect the towns north of Sursee to the city of Lucerne. The RegioExpress trains stop in Aarburg-Oftringen, Zofingen, Reiden, Dagmersellen, Nebikon, Wauwil, Sursee, Sempach-Neuenkirch and Emmenbrücke. Since the timetable change in 2011, regional trains of the Stadler FLIRT type have been used for this RE line , before that there were push-pull trains with standard cars I and Re 4/4 II. The Lucerne S-Bahn service is responsible for local transport with stops at all stations . From its introduction in 2004 to 2008, the S-Bahn line S8 ran continuously, which was partially tied through with the S1 to form a continuous Olten – Baar train route . With the introduction of the tilting train concept on the Gotthard Railway and the introduction of the half-hourly long-distance service from Zofingen to Lucerne, however, the timetable on the Olten to Lucerne line changed, so that the S-Bahn was broken up in Sursee. The S8 now runs every hour between Olten and Sursee, and the S1 runs every half hour between Sursee and Lucerne, and it also runs every half hour via Lucerne to Baar. Four -part multiple units of the type NPZ Domino have been used on the S8 since December 2011 , before that they were unconverted NPZ Kolibri. The S1, on the other hand, is driven by Stadler FLIRT trains.

Train stations

Olten

→ Main article : Olten train station

Zofingen

→ Main article : Zofingen train station

Sursee

→ Main article : Sursee train station

Emmenbrücke Gersag

The Emmenbrücke Gersag stop was officially inaugurated on December 14, 2002. The scheduled commissioning took place on December 15, 2002. It consists of two external platforms, 35 cm high, on the 16 per mille gradient between the Emmenbrücke and Rothenburg Dorf stations.

→ Main article : Emmenbrücke Gersag train station

Emmenbrücke

→ Main article : Emmenbrücke station

Lucerne

→ Main article : Lucerne train station

useful information

• The Olten – Lucerne route served as a pilot route for the ERTMS / ETCS Level 2 train protection system . The Canadian technology company Bombardier was responsible for the equipment .
• The maximum speed is 160 km / h, between Zofingen and Nebikon or Sempach-Neuenkirch and Sursee.

Spange Emmenbrücke

Due to the capacity bottlenecks on the only two-lane access route to Lucerne train station, which in particular makes it impossible to expand regional traffic, there are also other variants in addition to the Lucerne underground station, such as a connecting clip from Emmenbrücke to the Zug-Lucerne railway line, in order to especially prevent the Gotthard trains from turning heads in Lucerne save. As a replacement for the discontinued stop in Lucerne, the Emmenbrücke station is to be expanded into a long-distance train station.

Individual evidence

1. ^ Rail transport in Switzerland: Olten – Lucerne
2. ^ Report by the Federal Council to the Federal Assembly on its management in 1889. (PDF, 0.4 MB) Justice and Police Department. In: Swiss Federal Gazette. March 1, 1899, p. 411 , accessed November 20, 2013 . 
3. ^ Serious railway disaster near Lucerne. (PDF; 301 kB) In: Liechtensteiner Volksblatt. January 7, 1933, p. 3 , accessed November 20, 2013 . 
4. ↑ SBB published the timetable for 2012
5. ↑ Swiss Railway Review 2/2003 pages 52 + 53
6. ↑ Rail technology for Switzerland from Bombardier Transportation ( Memento from February 5, 2015 in the Internet Archive )
7. ↑ Master plan for the city center of Lucerne North (PDF)