Giessbachbahn

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Car at the valley station
The grand hotel around 1895
Track system of the Giessbachbahn when it opened in 1879 (left) and after the renovation in 1891 (right) Track system of the Giessbachbahn when it opened in 1879 (left) and after the renovation in 1891 (right)
Track system of the Giessbachbahn when it opened in 1879 (left) and after the renovation in 1891 (right)
Car guidance at the Giessbachbahn when it opened in 1879 (left) and after the renovation in 1891 (right) Car guidance at the Giessbachbahn when it opened in 1879 (left) and after the renovation in 1891 (right)
Car guidance at the Giessbachbahn when it opened in 1879 (left) and after the renovation in 1891 (right)

The Giessbachbahn , or GbB for short , opened on July 21, 1879 , is the oldest funicular in Switzerland that is still in operation and at the same time the first in Switzerland to be built solely for tourism. It is the oldest single-track funicular railway with a turnout in the middle.

history

In 1875 the Grandhotel Giessbach was opened above Lake Brienz . Carl Hauser-Blattman, the owner of the hotel, had the International Society for Mountain Railways build a funicular from the landing stage to the hotel. The track was designed by Carl Roman Abt , who at that time worked for the company headed by Niklaus Riggenbach and Olivier Zschokke . The components of the railway were created in the company's workshop in Aarau .

After the bankruptcy of the international company for mountain railways , the railway was looked after by the Bell machine factory . During the break in operation over the winter of 1890/1891, a new turnout was installed and the car chassis adapted to this. The Giessbachbahn, which opened as the first water ballast runway in Switzerland, was converted in 1912 to a mechanical drive using a turbine, which was replaced in 1948 by an electric drive with two motors. In 1958, instead of the two motors, a single one was replaced by the Oerlikon machine factory .

The hotel was closed in 1979 and should be replaced by a modern concrete building. To prevent this, it was bought by the Helvetia Nostra association in 1983 on the initiative of environmentalist Franz Weber and an application was made for protection.

In 1989 the superstructure was renewed.

In the winter of 1998/1999 the drive was replaced by a drive group from Von Roll .

The cable car was recognized as a Historic Monument of Mechanical Engineering by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers in August 2015 . Corresponding memorial plaques are located in the valley and mountain stations.

Historical classification

Even before the Giessbachbahn, the Chemin de fer Lausanne-Ouchy was opened in Switzerland in 1877 , which ran on the route of the later Lausanne-Ouchy cog railway until 1958 .

The following four European funiculars are older than the Giessbachbahn and are still in operation:

route

The Giessbachbahn is located on Lake Brienz in the canton of Bern and connects the Giessbach See boat station with the historic Grandhotel Giessbach , which is about 100 meters above the lake. The railway overcomes a height difference of 93 meters on its 345 meter long route, the gradient is between 240 and 320 per thousand . The imposing waterfalls of the Giessbach are in the immediate vicinity .

The upper section of the route runs over five successive filigree half-timbered arch bridges with a total length of 174 meters, which, like the railway itself, come from Niklaus Riggenbach's Aarau workshop . The three-axle red rail cars, which have been preserved in their original form to this day, have wooden benches and colored curtains that offer passengers protection from the rain.

Evasion

First execution

The meter-gauge Giessbachbahn was built as the first single-track funicular railway with a passing point in the middle of the route. It uses two Abt turnouts that do not have any movable turnout blades . For track guidance, one car had wheels with inner flanges , the other car with outer flanges. This first version of the Abt switch was complicated and caused more maintenance costs than the current version.

Remodeling in 1891

In 1886, the now common variant of the Abt switch, which was also installed in the Giessbachbahn in 1891, was installed for the first time on the Lugano – SBB funicular railway . It uses wagons that only have wheels on one side with flanges on both sides, with one wagon leading around the left rail, the other the right. The wheels on the unguided side do not have a flange, but a wider tread. This means that the interruptions in the internal rails in the area of ​​the switches can be crossed without any problems, as can the necessary openings for the crossing traction rope.

Drive system

The Giessbachbahn was originally planned and implemented as a water ballast runway. The two cars were connected to each other by a pull rope that was guided over a pulley in the mountain station. A water tank built under the car bodies was filled with up to 5 cubic meters of water at the mountain station. As a result, the downhill car could pull the uphill car up due to its higher weight. After the brakes were applied, the water in the valley station was drained again. The journey time at that time was 6 minutes. To brake the 11 meter long wagons, the system was equipped with Riggenbach type ladder racks and gear wheels . The original underframes of the wagons had a two-axle bogie on the valley side and a single axle on the mountain side. In order to be able to follow the radii of the turnout better, new three-axle base frames were installed in 1891.

Because the railway had to take a break after every journey, as the wagon tanks had to be emptied or filled each time, the principle of the water ballast railway was abandoned after several minor modifications. In addition, the railway could not be operated in winter due to the risk of icing. Because the mountain station did not have a roof at the beginning, both cars were housed in the valley station, with the upper car being driven by gravity to the valley station after the end of the season, where it could be set on a stump track next to the lower car using a switch provided for this purpose . For the start of operations in the spring, the car had to be brought back to the mountain station in a hand-driven gear wagon.

The Bell Maschinenfabrik from Kriens converted the system for the mechanical drive with a Pelton twin turbine , which was located in the mountain station. The power was transmitted via a worm gear to the drive pulley with three grooves, which is still in use today. Four rope pulleys lead the rope to the drive pulley. At the same time, the central axles removed in 1903 were reinstalled on the car. The driving speed could be increased to 1.2 meters per second.

To increase operational safety, the turbine was replaced in 1948 by two electric motors with 12.5 hp each. The driving speed increased to 1.9 meters per second. The power for the drive was generated by a Pelton turbine in the valley station, which drove a generator. The mountain station was given a roof so that the upper car could remain in the mountain station over the winter.

From 1958 until the most recent renovation in winter 1998/99, the railway was operated with a single MFO electric motor . With the modern drive from Von Roll , the journey time has been 4 minutes since then. It consists of a separately ventilated DC motor with an output of 31 kW, that of a controlled rectifier in thyristor is supplied with energy.

Technical specifications

  • Valley station: Lake Brienz ( 566  m above sea level )
  • Mountain station: Grandhotel Giessbach ( 656  m above sea level )
  • Length: 345 meters
  • Difference in altitude: 93 meters
  • Maximum gradient: 32%
  • Travel time: 4 minutes
  • Track width: 1 meter
  • Seats per car: 40
  • Length of the car: 11 meters
  • Manufacturer: Doppelmayr , Von Roll

literature

Web links

Commons : Giessbachbahn  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Giessbachbahn. In: bahndaten.ch/. Via Storia;
  2. ↑ standseilbahnen.ch : "The Giessbachbahn is the oldest funicular in Switzerland that is still in operation."
  3. ↑ a b c C. Gentil: The Giessbach Railway. In: Cable car nostalgia. 2003, accessed December 22, 2019 .
  4. ↑ standseilbahnen.ch
  5. ^ Hans Waldburger: The last cable cars with water weight drive . In: Railway amateur . No. 10 , 1979, p. 593 .
  6. ↑ Grand Hotel Giessbach, p. 5
  7. ↑ a b c d e Grand Hotel Giessbach, p. 6
  8. ^ Giessbachbahn funicular named mechanical engineering. ASME, August 27, 2015, accessed December 22, 2019 .
  9. ↑ standseilbahnen.ch : "The funicular from the Grandhotel Giessbach was the first funicular in the world with a turnout in the middle of the route."
  10. ↑ R. Abt, Part 2, Oberbau, General Arrangement
  11. ↑ a b literature . Presentation of Adolf Wild: The funicular on Giessbach. In: Railway amateur . No. 9 , 2017, p. 427 .
  12. ↑ standseilbahnen.ch: “The Abbot's turnout, which is used everywhere today [...] with a double flange on the outer wheels and a flat roller on the inner wheels, was first used in 1886 on the Lugano station funicular. "
  13. ↑ R. Abt, panel length profile
  14. ^ R. Abt, part 4, plate, top left, Fig. 1 and 2. Freight wagons
  15. ^ Rieker, Roger .: Grand Hotel Giessbach: Canton of Bern . Society for Swiss Art History, Bern 2004, ISBN 3-85782-751-3 .


Coordinates: 46 ° 44 ′ 5.6 "  N , 8 ° 1 ′ 21"  E ; CH1903:  six hundred and forty-four thousand six hundred and twenty-six  /  176 133