Chemin de fer Yverdon – Ste-Croix
| Yverdon - Ste-Croix Railway | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Route length: | 24.17 km | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Gauge : | 1000 mm ( meter gauge ) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Power system : | 15 kV 16.7 Hz ~ | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Maximum slope : | 44 ‰ | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Minimum radius : | 100 m | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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The Chemin de fer Yverdon – Ste-Croix (YSteC) is a narrow-gauge private railway in the canton of Vaud in Switzerland . The route leads from Yverdon-les-Bains at the southern end of Lake Neuchâtel to Ste-Croix in the Vaudois Jura . It is part of the regional transport company Travys . The trains run every hour during the day with an intersection in Vuiteboeuf at the usual symmetry minute ; the travel time for the entire route is 36 minutes (as of 2005).
route
The route begins at the train station in Yverdon-les-Bains (435 m above sea level) and initially runs parallel to the SBB - southern Jura foot line Lausanne - Biel / Bienne to the William Barbey YSteC stop; there is the new depot built in 1994 with a workshop. As far as Valeyres-sous-Montagny (450 m) the route is almost completely flat. Then it climbs steadily through the valley of the La Brine river via Essert-sous-Champvent (507 m) and Vuiteboeuf (589 m) to Baulmes (631 m), the most important intermediate station.
The Six-Fontaines stop (705 m) is on a 180 ° curve. The railway now climbs the steep southeast slope of the Forel , crosses under the Hermitage rock in a short tunnel and bypasses the steep valley basin of the Brine . The Trois-Villes stop (907 m) on the steep southeastern slope of Mont de Baulmes is more than 300 meters above the valley floor. The route goes around the mountain and runs high above a gorge , the Gorges de Covatannes ; there are four more short tunnels here. On the north side of Mont de Baulmes , the route becomes a little flatter and finally ends in the train station of Ste-Croix (1066 m).
history
The line between Yverdon and Ste-Croix was opened on November 17, 1893 and initially operated with steam locomotives of the Mallet type . The multi-talented William Barbey - engineer, botanist, liberal councilor and philanthropist - from nearby Valeyres-sous-Rances was almost single-handedly responsible for the financing and planning of the railway. The deeply religious patron decreed that "his" train was not allowed to run on Sundays. After Barbey's death, this provision was lifted and trains have been running daily since 1919.
Due to the aging of rolling stock and the shortage of coal during the Second World War , the YSteC decided to electrify . This took place on January 25, 1945; the decision was made to use the same electricity system as the SBB . At SIG and BBC two types were of railcars purchased: three "large" BCe 4/4 and two "small" BCe 2/4. The freight traffic was handled by the Ge 4/4 21 electric locomotive , which with its front end is reminiscent of the famous "crocodiles" SBB Ce 6/8 II of the Gotthard Railway . At the end of the 1970s, the decline in goods traffic could be halted with the roll- stand operation, with YSteC doing pioneering work in the development of a new type of roll-stand.
On February 14, 1976, two railcars collided head-on between Essert-sous-Champvent and Valeyres-sous-Montagny at around 50 km / h. Seven people were killed and 40 others were injured. The two trains were in Essert-sous-Champvent cross should. The narrow-gauge line was not equipped with a route block.
In 1981 the YSteC received three modern Be 4/4 (1-3) railcars and two matching control cars .
On January 1, 2001, the merger with Chemin de fer Pont-Brassus (PBr) and the bus company TPYG to form the transport company Travys . In the same year two Stadler GTW ( Be 2/6 2000–2001) were delivered; these partially replaced the Be 4/4 railcars, whereby the Be 4/4 3 was sold to the Chemin de fer Bière-Apples-Morges (BAM), which in turn has three identical railcars (11, 12 and 14). During Expo.02, the GTW served as shuttle trains between the Expo parking lot and the center of Yverdon.
In August 2012, 17 narrow-gauge multiple units were put out to tender together with the MBC , MOB and TPF . In March 2013 it was announced that Stadler had received the order worth 151 million francs. In 2015/2016 three three-part multiple units Be 4/4 + AB + Be 4/4 were delivered to the Travys , which have a maximum output of 3600 kW and reach a maximum speed of 100 km / h.
Railway accident at Trois-Villes
On October 2, 2015, the BDt control car No. 53 and the Be 4/4 No. 2 multiple unit derailed in a left curve about 1.5 kilometers below the Trois-Villes stop. The service train without passengers left Ste-Croix station, but stopped after a journey of 390 meters for no apparent reason due to an automatic emergency brake. The driver was able to start the train again, whereupon it stopped again after another 170 meters. While checking what the problem with the brake might be, he left the driver's cab while the train started moving again. The Führer did not manage to slow down the composition. He jumped off the train and injured himself slightly. The driverless composition derailed after a few kilometers of driving at a speed of 85 kilometers per hour. The front control car detached itself from the railcar, overturned and landed on the steep terrain downhill, the railcar came to a standstill in an upright position next to the track.
The final report on the accident refers to driving and braking tests after the incident with an almost identical composition. In the process, the system found insufficient braking force on a 40 ‰ gradient, which, for structural reasons, occurs during standstill after emergency braking. An improper approach to repairing the breakdown by the driver is also recorded.
literature
- Michel Grandguillaume, Gérald Hadorn, Sébastien Jarne, Jean-Louis Rochaix: Voies étroites du Jura Vaudois. Editions La Raillère, Belmont - formerly Bureau vaudois d'adresses (BAV) - Lausanne 1988, ISBN 2-88125-006-7 .
- R. Scholz, Michel Py: Le Chemin de fer Yverdon - Ste.Croix . Edité par R. Scholz, CH-1450 Ste.Croix, 1974.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Collision de trains sur la ligne Yverdon-Sainte-Croix: septs morts et quarante blessés. (Le Temps - archives historiques) (No longer available online.) Journal de Genève, Geneva, February 16, 1976, p. 9 , archived from the original on March 6, 2016 ; 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.
- ↑ L'Office fédéral des transport: une erhur humaine. (Le Temps - archives historiques) (No longer available online.) Journal de Genève, Geneva, February 17, 1976, p. 11 , 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.
- ↑ Jürg Lüthard, Urs Wieser: New multiple units for Western Switzerland meter gauge railways. In: Swiss Railway Review. No. 6/2016, pp. 301–307 and no. 7/2016, pp. 361–367.
- ↑ Swiss Safety Investigation Board SAUST: final report , accessed on July 9, 2017 (fr.)
