Solothurn – Moutier railway line

Solothurn – Moutier
Timetable field :	411
Route length:	22.09 km
Gauge :	1435 mm ( standard gauge )
Power system :	15 kV, 16.7 Hz  ~
Maximum slope :	27.7  ‰
Minimum radius :	250 m
Legend Jura foot line from Olten Upgraded line from Wanzwil from Bern , Niederbipp and Langenthal 73.8 Solothurn 432  m above sea level M. to Lyss Aare Bridge (104 m) 74.8 0.0 Solothurn West 433  m above sea level M. Jura foot line from Biel / Bienne 1.9 Langendorf 470  m above sea level M. Geissloch Viaduct (186 m) 5.3 Lommiswil 555  m above sea level M. 8.0 In the wood 618  m above sea level M. 9.6 Oberdorf SO 655  m above sea level M. Weissenstein tunnel (3700 m) 13.6 Goose fountain 719  m above sea level M. 14.6 Crémines Zoo 695  m above sea level M. Corcelles Viaduct (96 m) 16.6 Corcelles BE 651  m above sea level M. 17.8 Crémines 624  m above sea level M. 18.8 Grandval 601  m above sea level M. Jura line from Delémont 22.1 Moutier (Munster) 529  m above sea level M. to Sonceboz-Tavannes and Biel / Bienne-Grenchen Nord

The Solothurn – Moutier railway is a standard gauge, slightly more than 22 km long railway line in Switzerland that connects the Solothurn canton capital Solothurn through the Weissenstein tunnel with Moutier ( German:  Münster ) in the Bernese Jura . Since the start of operations in 1908, the Emmentalbahn took over the operation of the line owned by the Solothurn-Münster-Bahn (SMB). In 1997, this merged with the Emmental-Burgdorf-Thun-Bahn (EBT) and the United Huttwil-Bahnen (VHB), with which the SMB had already formed an operating community, to form Regionalverkehr Mittelland (RM), which then took over the operation of the line. The route has been owned by BLS since the merger in 2006 , while passenger transport has been operated by SBB since 2010 .

history

For the history see Solothurn-Münster-Bahn .

Geissloch Viaduct of the SMB near Bellach

Oberdorf station in 2012

construction

The constituent general assembly of the SMB took place on April 30, 1899, but for the reasons mentioned in the articles of association and because the financing of the route did not come about earlier, the start of construction was delayed until 1903. The construction work finally ended on December 28 Recorded in 1903. The construction of the line proved to be difficult, on the one hand the area to be built on was unstable, so that there were frequent landslides , on the other hand the construction of 84 engineering structures was necessary on the relatively short stretch . The building material for these buildings came mainly from the quarries in Lommiswil and Gänsbrunnen . The largest construction site on the route was the future station area in Oberdorf , as the Weissenstein tunnel was built from there , so there was, as with other tunnel construction sites in Switzerland, a temporary settlement for the tunnel workers nearby. During the construction of the route, two people died at the Geissloch Viaduct, the exact causes are unknown. When operations began in 1908, the construction work had not yet been completed; the problem with the landslides in particular had not yet been resolved, which meant that the work was not completed until 1909, i.e. in the first full year of operation.

First years of operation

Because running the route itself would not have been profitable due to its short length, the Solothurn-Münster-Bahn transferred operations to the Emmentalbahn , which reached its end point in Solothurn , before the route was inaugurated . The line was opened on August 3, 1908. Since, as already mentioned above, the construction work was not yet fully completed, various failures and interruptions in operations occurred in 1909 due to landslides. The traffic developed well at first, which was mainly due to the freight traffic, which was mainly used by the Von Roll ironworks and the Swiss army . The beginning of the First World War also had a strong influence on the use of the route, so passenger traffic had to be severely restricted and scheduled freight traffic had to be completely stopped because larger operations were no longer possible due to the drastic rise in coal prices. Although the timetable was able to show the same operating density as before the war from 1921, the frequencies increased, mainly because road traffic was gradually becoming competitive. The route continued to have a certain importance as a transit line.

Electrification and World War II

Electrical operation under the AC system common to the Swiss Federal Railways (SBB) with a voltage of 15 kilovolts and a frequency of 16⅔ Hertz was started on the SMB on October 2, 1932, which resulted in an increase in passenger traffic. The outbreak of World War II in 1939 had a major impact on the route from Solothurn to Moutier, as the Swiss Army used the line very heavily for the transport of people and goods. On the other hand, the failure of transit traffic in 1940 turned out to be a disadvantage. From August 20, 1945, the war operations were suspended again.

post war period

The re-commissioning of the route was initially slow, only with the opening of the Oberdorf – Weissenstein chairlift in 1952 , the valley station of which is located on the Oberdorf train station area, was the route able to regain a certain tourist significance this time. The further importance of the route during this period was limited to its function as a feeder to the regional centers of Solothurn and Moutier, which is why traffic has mainly focused on commuter times since the 1960s .

Rejected cessation of business

In 1978 the final report of the commission for the Swiss overall transport concept was published, in which it recommended the conversion of the route to bus operation and the conversion of the Weissenstein tunnel into a road tunnel. However, the Federal Office of Transport and the Canton of Solothurn rejected these measures in 1984, mainly because the route was still of some importance for transit goods traffic and major infrastructure renovations were not necessary.

Since 1997

The joint operation with EBT and VHB - under joint management by EBT as the largest of the three companies - was finally merged on January 1, 1997 in the company Regionalverkehr Mittelland (RM). The RM for its part merged on June 27, 2006 with the BLS Lötschbergbahn (BLS) to form BLS AG . Since the timetable change in December 2010, the passenger trains on the route owned by BLS have been operated by SBB. This happened (together with the delivery of the regional trains between Murten and Payerne ) in return for the takeover of SBB offers in the Lucerne area by BLS. Since 2013, the line has been on the list of the Federal Office of Transport for routes that have a cost recovery rate of less than 30 percent. In 2017 the Federal Office of Transport decided that the Weissenstein Tunnel should be renovated from 2020 in order to ensure operation for another 25 years. The rehabilitation of the line is to begin in April 2021.

literature

• Werner Weber, Jürg Suter: Solothurn – Münster Railway. The Solothurn – Moutier line from BLS AG. Prellbock Verlag, Leissigen 2008 ISBN 978-3-907579-28-2

Individual evidence

1. ^ Solothurn-Münster Railway. The Solothurn – Moutier line from BLS AG. Pp. 14-15
2. ^ Solothurn-Münster Railway. The Solothurn – Moutier line from BLS AG. P. 15
3. ^ Solothurn-Münster Railway. The Solothurn – Moutier line from BLS AG. P. 16
4. ^ Solothurn-Münster Railway. The Solothurn – Moutier line from BLS AG. P. 17
5. ^ Solothurn-Münster Railway. The Solothurn – Moutier line from BLS AG. P. 19
6. ^ Solothurn-Münster Railway. The Solothurn – Moutier line from BLS AG. P. 39
7. ^ Solothurn-Münster Railway. The Solothurn – Moutier line from BLS AG. P. 39
8. ^ Solothurn-Münster Railway. The Solothurn – Moutier line from BLS AG. P. 43
9. ^ Solothurn-Münster Railway. The Solothurn – Moutier line from BLS AG. P. 47
10. ^ Solothurn-Münster Railway. The Solothurn – Moutier line from BLS AG. P. 49
11. ^ Solothurn-Münster Railway. The Solothurn – Moutier line from BLS AG. P. 49
12. ↑ Annual Report 2010 (PDF; 4 MB) BLS. P. 6, 15. Retrieved April 29, 2012.
13. ^ Publication by the Federal Office of Transport. (PDF; 29 kB) Accessed February 22, 2018 . 
14. ↑ Weissenstein railway tunnel is being renovated . Federal Office of Transport. February 14, 2017. Retrieved February 22, 2018.
15. ↑ Rahel Meier: What is the BLS planning to do with the Solothurn-Moutier route? The renovation plans are now available. October 14, 2019, accessed October 14, 2019 .