Zofingen – Wettingen railway line

Zofingen – Wettingen
Timetable field :	514 Zofingen – Lenzburg 650.1 Lenzburg – Mägenwil
Route length:	41.5 km
Gauge :	1435 mm ( standard gauge )
Route class :	D4
Power system :	15 kV 16.7 Hz  ~
Dual track :	Lenzburg – Abzw Gruemet
Legend from Lucerne 0.0 Zofingen to Olten 2.3 Küngoldingen 4.9 Walterswil - Striegel 6.6 Safenwil Kölliken hazardous waste landfill 9.3 Koelliken Oberdorf 10.9 Kölliken WSB Aarau-Schöftland 13.9 Oberentfelden WSB Aarau-Menziken-Burg 16.7 67.5 Suhr to Aarau Migros distribution center 63.3 Hunzenschwil from Aarau 59.8 Lenzburg Seetalbahn to Lucerne Seetalbahn Lenzburg Stadt-Wildegg 57.9 Junction Gexi to Rotkreuz from Rotkreuz 55.6 Othmarsingen to Brugg 53.8 Mägenwil Brugg-Mellingen street (66 m) Mellingen bridge over the Reuss (193 m) 50.7 Junction Gruemet to Killwangen-Spreitenbach Street Baden-Mellingen (74 m) 50.1 Mellingen 47.4 Dättwil 44.2 Baden Upper Town from Baden old route Zurich – Baden Lower Limmat Bridge ( Limmat ) (129 m) 42.7 Wettingen to Zurich to Zurich Seebach

The Zofingen – Wettingen line was opened on September 6, 1877 between Zofingen and Baden Oberstadt, together with the Aarau – Suhr line, by the Swiss National Railways (SNB). The opening of the Baden Oberstadt – Wettingen section followed on October 15, 1877, together with the Wettingen – Effretikon railway line , which was the continuation to the east , due to the construction delay on the Limmat Bridge . The SNB went bankrupt as early as 1878 , after which the line was acquired from the bankruptcy estate by the Swiss Northeastern Railway (NOB). With the repurchase of the railways by the Swiss Confederation, the NOB was transferred to the Swiss Federal Railways (SBB) in 1902 .

history

The line was laid out by the SNB as a single-track line and was intended to compete with the Baden – Aarau railway line of the NOB. The SNB wanted the shortest possible connection from Lake Constance to western Switzerland and therefore passed the economically interesting places, but it was planned to develop Solothurn from Zofingen. The city was then connected to the SCB network with the Gäubahn from Olten .

The lack of traffic due to the competition from the existing railway companies and the economic crisis triggered by the founder crash meant that the SNB had to file for bankruptcy after only 4 months of continuous operation, whereupon the NOB acquired the route network from the bankruptcy estate on October 1, 1880. The Zofingen – Suhr section was sold to SCB.

On May 5, 1927, as part of the electrification of the southern railway, the Lenzburg – Gexi section was spanned with the contact wire, followed by Gexi – Othmarsingen on May 28, 1932 and Zofingen – Suhr– (Aarau) on July 6, 1946. At the two crossings with the WSB , special protection routes had to be built because the WSB was electrified with 750 volts direct current. On December 17, 1946, the Suhr – Lenzburg and Othmarsingen-Wettingen sections were electrified, which meant that the entire Zofingen – Wettingen line was spanned with contact wire.

On February 24, 2004, when a Unimog 424 collided with a regional train on an unguarded level crossing near Walterswil, two community workers from the Oftringen depot were killed.

route

The route leads from Zofingen over the Striegel to Suhr and thus bypasses the Solothurn area around Olten. The Solothurn town of Walterswil has a stop on the route on Aargau soil. In Suhr the railway line to Aarau branched off , which was closed in 2004 so that the line can be used by the WSB. From Suhr, the route continues to Lenzburg, then crosses the Aabach and the former Seetalbahn route to Wildegg together with the Südbahn on a dam to reach Wettingen via Othmarsingen, Mellingen and Baden Oberstadt.

The Reuss Bridge built by the SNB near Mellingen was the first large structure of the Bell machine works . The original, single-lane steel lattice girder was replaced in 1973 by a composite bridge, because in connection with the construction of the Heitersberg tunnel, which opened in 1975, the line from Lenzburg to the newly built service station near Gruemet was expanded into a double-lane main line. In Gruemet, east of the Reuss Bridge near Mellingen, the route branches off in the direction of the Heitersberg tunnel from the route in the direction of Wettingen.

business

Passenger traffic from Lenzburg to Wettingen on the national railway was stopped in 2007. The Gruemet – Wettingen route is only used regularly by freight traffic to operate the Mellingen tank farm and the sidings in Baden Oberstadt. If the Heitersberg tunnel is closed for maintenance work or if a single-track operation is necessary, it is still used as an alternative route (usually in a west-east direction).

The Lenzburg - Zofingen section is used every half hour until 8 p.m., then every hour by the S 28 of the Aargau S-Bahn and is popularly referred to as «Nazeli», derived from the national railway.

Since July 5, 2009, the entire route has been approved for route class D4.

literature

• Hans G. Wägli, General Secretariat SBB (Ed.): Swiss Rail Network . AS-Verlag, Zurich 1998, ISBN 3-905111-21-7 .

Individual evidence

1. ^ Jean Gross: Final report on the accident on the unguarded level crossing 'Winterhaldenstrasse' between regional train 6464 (SBB AG) and a building authority vehicle of the community of Oftringen. (PDF, 0.3 MB) Swiss Accident Investigation Board SAUST, July 6, 2004, accessed on December 7, 2013 . 
2. ↑ In 30 minutes “having a coffee in Bern” - December 12, 2004 The biggest timetable change in the history of SBB. Zofinger Tagblatt, April 20, 2004, archived from the original on January 16, 2013 ; accessed on October 5, 2018 . 
3. ↑ Implementation provisions FDV Amendment 2 valid from July 5, 2009, R I-30111 pages 51–108