Rheineck – Walzenhausen mountain railway

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Rheineck – Walzenhausen mountain railway
Route of the Rheineck – Walzenhausen mountain railway
RhW railcar in Rheineck
Timetable field : 858
Route length: 1.96 km
Gauge : 1200 mm
Power system : 600 V  =
Maximum slope : 250  ‰
Rack system : Riggenbach
Legend
Stop ... - start of the route
 -0.06 Rheineck S 26 405  m above sea level M.
Railroad Crossing
 Main streets 7 and 13
   
 to the Ruderbach depot (only switch)
   
 Start of cogwheel route
Stop, stop
 0.60 Ruderbach (former valley station) 406  m above sea level M.
tunnel
 Protection tunnel (315 m)
Bridge (medium)
 Griffelbach Bridge (78 m)
Bridge (medium)
 Hexenkirchlitobel Bridge (153 m)
Stop, stop
 1.65 Courtyard (need stop for groups) 540  m above sea level M.
Bridge (small)
 Bridge (approx. 6 m, overpass)
Bridge (small)
 Grund-Brücke (approx. 6 m, overpass)
   
 Walzenhausen Tunnel (70 m)
   
 1.90 Walzenhausen S 26 672  m above sea level M.

Coordinates: 47 ° 27 '34 "  N , 9 ° 35' 47"  E ; CH1903:  762,695  /  258748

The Rheineck – Walzenhausen mountain railway is a narrow-gauge railway line in eastern Switzerland . The 1.96 kilometer long adhesion and cog railway based on the Riggenbach system connects Rheineck in the canton of St. Gallen with Walzenhausen in the canton of Appenzell Ausserrhoden twice an hour . It is popularly called Walzehuusebähnli . Since December 2013, it has also been integrated into the St. Gallen S-Bahn network as the S 26 line .

It goes back to the 1895 in Rheineck as a corporation under the name cable car company Rheineck-Walzenhausen founded private railway company . The company later called itself Bergbahn Rheineck-Walzenhausen AG (official initials RhW ) and merged in 2006 with the Appenzeller Bahnen .

history

Priority share of CHF 500 in the Rheineck-Walzenhausen cable car company from October 1, 1897

Original plans from the 1870s envisaged a connection of Walzenhausen to the Rorschach-Heiden mountain railway . Since this project was not implemented, it was decided to use a funicular railway with water weight drive to Rheineck. The mountain railway company was founded on December 17, 1894, and construction work began on April 16, 1895. The route, opened on June 27, 1896, originally ended at the Ruderbach valley station ( St. Margrethen municipality ). In 1909, the distance between the station and Ruderbach Rheineck was as normalspuriges feeder Tram built Rheinnecker connecting web bridged.

In 1958, by converting the funicular railway and integrating the connecting railway, today's adhesion and rack railway was created with a direct current supply of 600  volts via an overhead line . The otherwise unusual gauge of 1200 millimeters, which is often found on cable cars, has been retained and the adhesion route re-tracked. A new reception building was built in Walzenhausen during the renovation.

When the Rheineck station was rebuilt in 1999, the route could be extended by a few meters in front of the platform roof. A 400 meter long stretch between the road bridge to Gaißau and the train station was also slightly corrected. This was made possible because the SBB reduced their facilities to two main tracks and thus the space for the former track 1 of the SBB was now available for the RhW.

Revision work was carried out on the railcar from November 2013 to May 2014. The car body was renewed, the gear wheel brake system was adapted to the current regulations and the interior of the car was refreshed (before that, the railcar still had the wooden bench seating from 1958). In addition, the Walzehuuser Bähnli got a new coat of paint. It should then be able to perform its service for at least another 20 years. (Status: November 2013) The costs are estimated at 900,000 francs. Replacement buses have been operating in the meantime. The renewed vehicle was officially inaugurated on May 8, 2014, and regular operations resumed on May 20.

From October 2015 to March 2016 the reception building in Walzenhausen was rebuilt. The access was relocated, designed with glass walls and is only on the south side of the building, so that the train can be seen from the village. A shop for everyday products with a bistro, ticket sales and post office moved into the building, and as before there is also a hairdressing salon in the train station. A photovoltaic system was built on the roof. From mid-October to the end of December 2015, rail operations had to be stopped for the renovation work and buses were running instead.

Due to declining frequencies and a cost recovery rate of less than 30 percent, the cantons of Appenzell Ausserrhoden and St. Gallen have an engineering office checked in 2019 whether for the three cog railways of the Appenzeller Bahnen, from Rheineck to Walzenhausen, from Altstätten Stadt to Gais and from Rorschach Hafen to Heiden and "more customer-friendly and cheaper alternatives" would be feasible. A switch to bus operation or fully automatic operation is under discussion.

Route

Seen from the railcar, the tracks with Rheineck and Lake Constance in the background
RhW railcar near Brüggli Grund below Walzenhausen
Hoftobel Bridge
Level crossing, wagon hall and start of the rack section, 2009

The RhW begins on a head track next to the SBB - Rheineck station and after 643 meters of adhesion section and crossing the road from Rheineck to St. Margrethen, it reaches the start of the rack at the former Ruderbach valley station of the former funicular (stop on request). With a constant gradient of 25 percent, the railcar passes the 315 meter long protective tunnel. The Hexenkirchlitobel is spanned on two bridges 78 and 153 meters long (iron construction, the upper one replaced by a concrete construction in 1958). This is followed by the required stop in Hof, before after a short drive of five to nine minutes (depending on the number of stops) the mountain station is reached in another 70 meter long tunnel under the Kurhaus in Walzenhausen.

business

To this day there is only one single railcar , the BDeh 1/2, built in 1958 by the companies SLM , FFA and BBC , variously overhauled and repaired in the RhB workshop in Landquart . On weekdays (2014) 24 pairs of trains run Monday to Friday and 21 on Sundays. In Rheineck, these have a connection to the trains from St. Gallen to Chur and vice versa. The offer is supplemented in the evening by five (Monday to Thursday four) course pairs with minibuses.

Rail replacement services are offered during the necessary revision and repair work on the railcar .

In 1896 46,606 people were carried. The maximum number of people carried was reached in 1963 with 205,083, in 1995 it was 104,053.

In the anniversary year of 1996, 17,430 trains covered a distance of 32,445 kilometers and carried 109,326 passengers.

Tourism

  • The RhW is an integral part of the Rorschach - Heiden AR –Walzenhausen – Rheineck – Rorschach adventure tour. This includes a trip on two mountain railways ( Rorschach-Heiden-Bergbahn next to the RhW) and a Lake Constance ship ( Rheineck SG -Rorschach). Two alternatives are available for the Heiden – Walzenhausen route: Either by post bus or on foot along the approximately eight kilometer long Witzweg . The tour can also be done in the opposite direction.

literature

  • Konrad Sonderegger, Peter Eggenberger: Rorschach-Heiden-Bahn, Rheineck-Walzenhausen mountain railway, two mountain railways in words and pictures. Published by R. Weber, Heiden 1992
  • Eisenbahn-Kurier Special number 64: Die Eisenbahn am Bodensee, Freiburg 2002, pages 54–55.
  • Bergbahn Rheineck-Walzenhausen RhW , brochure of the mountain railway without publisher and year.

Web links

Commons : Bergbahn Rheineck – Walzenhausen  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Wildly romantic Hexenkirchlischlucht gorge  ( 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. The Rheintaler from May 30, 2000, accessed on November 19, 2013@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www.rheintaler.ch  
  2. ↑ first with this name in the course book December 15, 2013–13. December 2014: Timetable field 858 as PDF
  3. ↑ Excerpt from the Federal Archives 01/01/1895 03/31/1895 E53 # 1000/893 # 15828 * Submission of the statutes of the Rheineck – Walzenhausen cable car company and approval of the same, accessed on November 22, 2013
  4. ↑ Aktiensammler 05/10, p. 18, ISSN  1611-8006
  5. ↑ Online archive: Der Rheintaler, June 15, 2006 ( Memento from December 2, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Walzenhausen also wanted a train, accessed on November 22, 2013
  6. ↑ Walter Hefti: Rack railways of the world. Birkhäuser Verlag Basel and Stuttgart 1971, ISBN 3-7643-0550-9 , page 126
  7. ^ Extension of the railway and the new RhW station in Rheineck St.Galler Tagblatt Online, article from June 1, 1999
  8. ^ Bähnli is driven for revision ( Memento from December 2, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Der Rheintaler from November 11, 2013, accessed on November 26, 2013
  9. ↑ Bergbahn Rheineck – Walzenhausen in the new design in operation. , Media release from the Appenzeller Bahnen dated May 19, 2014, online .
  10. ↑ Reconstruction of the Walzenhausen station ( memento of March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) on the Appenzeller Bahnen website , accessed on March 2, 2016.
  11. ↑ Tobias Gafafer: Eastern Switzerland cog railways are on the red list In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung from February 28, 2019
  12. ↑ 109,326 people rode the Rheineck-Walzenhausen mountain railway ( Memento from December 2, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Der Rheintaler from May 9, 1997, accessed on November 26, 2013
  13. ↑ Heiden - Adventure Tour ( Memento from November 10, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) PDF, SCHWEIZERISCHE BODENSEE SCHIFFFAHRT, accessed on November 10, 2013
  14. ↑ Witzweg and adventure tour - enjoy the wonderful views ( memento from November 10, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Internet site: PostBus Schweiz AG, accessed on November 10, 2013
  15. ↑ Adventure tour with 2 mountain railways, post bus and ship ( Memento from November 10, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Internet site: Appenzellerland, accessed on November 10, 2013