Hauenstein route

Timetable field 500/503: Basel-Olten
Rümlinger Viaduct on the apex stretch
Gauge :	1435 mm ( standard gauge )
Legend from Strasbourg 0.0 Basel SBB S 1 S 3 277  m above sea level M. Jura Railway to Delémont - Biel / Bienne Basler Tram , Birseckbahn , Trambahn Basel-Aesch 1.2 Basel connecting railway to Basel Bad Bf - Germany Basellandschaftliche Ueberlandbahn Birsbrücke III St. Jakob (90 m) 2.5 Connecting curve from the Delémont – Basel line 3.0 Basel connecting line from Basel Badischer Bahnhof 4.8 Muttenz 281  m above sea level M. 6.5 Eagle tunnel (5302 m) 8.3 Pratteln 290  m above sea level M. S 1 Bözberg route to Frick - Zurich / Laufenburg 12.2 Frenkendorf - Füllinsdorf 331  m above sea level M. 13.8 14.4 Liestal 327  m above sea level M. Connection to the Waldenburgerbahn to Waldenburg Frenkebrücke 17.4 Louse 343  m above sea level M. 19.1 Itingen 359  m above sea level M. 21.1 Sissach end point S 9 376  m above sea level M. Hauenstein crest stretch to Olten Ergolzbrücke Böckten 23.7 Diepflingen 420  m above sea level M. 24.0 Gelterkinden 403  m above sea level M. Ergolzbrücke Gelterkinden 25.28 Sommerau former train station 420  m above sea level M. 26.9 Ruemlingen 480  m above sea level M. Rümlinger Viaduct (128 m) 28.8 Buckten 520  m above sea level M. Bridge Staatsstrasse Tecknau (149 m) 28.1 Tecknau 445  m above sea level M. Bucktentunnel (263 m) Mühlefluhtunnel (60 m) Hauenstein Base Tunnel (8134 m) 30.8 Laufelfingen 559  m above sea level M. Hauenstein summit tunnel (2495 m) 33.9 Miesern winter sports stop canceled 36.6 Trimbach 482  m above sea level M. Tannwald Aare Bridge / Olten Aare Bridge (103 m / 153m) 37.4 Connection curve to Aarau 37.8 S 9 via Hauenstein-Scheiteltunnel from Sissach 37.4 from Aarau – Zurich / Rotkreuz 39.2 Olten end point S 3 and S 9 396  m above sea level M. to Bern , Solothurn and Lucerne

The Hauenstein line is one of the oldest railway lines in Switzerland . It connects the two cities of Basel and Olten .

The name Hauenstein , reminiscent of medieval ravines carved deep into limestone cliffs, denotes two pass crossings over the main Jura chain and the village of Hauenstein south of the crest of the Lower Hauenstein Pass . In the larger area of ​​these two passes, two railway tunnels cross the Jura: the older Hauenstein summit tunnel runs under the village of Hauenstein, while the newer Hauenstein base tunnel runs east of the municipality.

While the entire long-distance traffic is now routed via the base route, the apex route is usually only used for local passenger traffic (“ Läufelfingerli ”). If the route is interrupted, however, express and intercity trains continue to run on the old Hauenstein route, for which they need a journey time that is almost four minutes longer . The apex section is only partially suitable for freight trains due to the steep gradients.

The Hauenstein peak tunnel

Line (Sissach–) Läufelfingen – Trimbach (–Olten) (SBB-Kursbuchfeld 503)

Length 2495 meters, construction period 1853–1858

prehistory

In 1850 the Swiss Federal Council invited the two English engineers Robert Stephenson and Henry Swinburne to draw up plans for a railway network in the Swiss Confederation. In order to connect the three most important cities of the German-speaking part of the country, Zurich , Basel and Bern , the experts suggested connecting Basel to the Mittelland by means of a route along the Rhine or by tunneling under the pass . The Federal Council favored a route with a Jura piercing through the Untere Hauenstein or the Schafmatt . Both routes followed the Ergolz to Sissach , from where one path was to lead via Läufelfingen and through the Hauenstein tunnel to Olten , while the other was to lead via Gelterkinden and from there via Anwil or Tecknau to the Schafmatt tunnel and on to Aarau . In the competition between these variants, the running finger route emerged victorious because it managed with a shorter tunnel and so its construction costs could be estimated a little lower. The Swiss Central Railway (SCB) , founded in Basel in February 1853, was the first to implement this project. The internationally experienced and sought-after Württemberg senior building officer Carl von Etzel , who led the work as senior engineer, had already come to the following conclusion in his report to the provisional board of directors the year before: “The connection from Basel to Aarethal via the Jura is the most important line in the entire Swiss railway network, but also the one that presents the greatest technical difficulties. "

Construction of the open route

Railway map between Basel-Olten by engineer Rudolf Gross from the 1850s

In 1853 von Etzel worked out the details of the lines, the terracing and the engineering structures. Work also progressed very quickly in the flat area. The 13.26 km long section between the provisional train station in Basel and Liestal was opened on December 19, 1854, just about a year and a half after the Centralbahngesellschaft was founded, and on June 1, 1855, the 6.86 km long section to Sissach added. This is where the technically more demanding part began, giving the line the character of a mountain route. In addition to two shorter tunnels between Buckten and Läufelfingen , the Rümlingen Viaduct in particular was a technical masterpiece. The 9.63 km long route from Sissach to Läufelfingen, where the station is the culmination point of the railway line, was put into operation on May 1, 1857. Geometer Jakob Christen took care of the surveying work, and in the 1850s Rudolf Gross published the railway map between Basel and Olten in Basel . Another noteworthy civil engineering structure was the Aare Bridge, which was built between 1854 and 1856 under the direction of Niklaus Riggenbach , the then head of the SCB machine shop in Basel. Senior engineer von Etzel published the plans for the bridges and valley crossings, so that the specialist knowledge applied could also be used in other railway projects.

Surveying and construction of the top tunnel

"Map of the Hauenstein after the recording of Mr. Geometer Christians."

The construction of the apex tunnel began in July 1853 after the location of the two portals had been determined. From February 1, 1854, the English entrepreneur Thomas Brassey from London continued the work in piecework. The project was a great challenge, because never before had an entire mountain range been drilled through in Switzerland. Nobody thought it was possible that two Gegenortvortrieb as foreman end Equipen after years inside the mountain meet could. Brassey undertook to complete the tunnel by April 1, 1857, which was only possible with rapid work progress. The 2496 m long tunnel was therefore driven from five points . This required the construction of three shafts, which enabled intermediate attacks in both directions. The middle shaft No. 2, however, had to be abandoned due to excessive water pressure. The five project sections were between 455 m and 1027 m long. In the 1850s, the same tunneling method with intermediate attacks from shafts was used at Hauenstein as was also the case around a century and a half later with the Gotthard Base Tunnel . However, it is around 23 times longer than the Hauenstein summit tunnel.

Excerpt from the "Map of the Hauenstein after the recording of Mr. Geometer Christen" with the tunnel area

The tunnel direction was indicated by wooden signals at appropriate points on the surface. Solidly walled signal stones guaranteed the immutability of the two portal points. The theodolite , which was used to transmit the direction in the tunnel, was set up on both sides of the tunnel at some distance from the portals. The transmission of the tunnel direction in the shafts turned out to be more complicated, which was done with a bussole 24 cm in diameter. For this purpose, the deviation of the magnetic needle from the direction line was measured on the surface, which was 9 ° 58 'west. This magnetically determined azimuth was then transferred to the tunnel floor by two 6 kg laces, with all iron being removed at a distance of 18 m. To bring the laces to rest, they were allowed to play in vessels filled with water, the surface of which was still covered with wood splinters. The height in the shafts was determined using wooden rods; the individual rods were hooked together in a solid manner and the whole connection hung in the shaft after their length had been measured. "On the whole, the geometric work was carried out with great punctuality. When breaking through the tunnel in terms of direction and height, there was a difference of only 10 and 8 lines [30 and 24 mm], respectively."

Geological average of the Hauenstein tunnel

The tunnel was built according to the "English method": First a core tunnel was built for the removal of the excavated material, then the entire profile from the ridge to the base was excavated and secured with wooden beams, and finally the brickwork was carried out with the aid of a movable plank arch. The tools were still quite primitive. They worked with a hammer , chisel, pick , drill and crowbar . Horses and men from many countries, even numerous children, worked in the tunnels under great danger and inhaled the stifling smoke of black powder and dust. The effects of the geology with the complicated structure of the Jura and the pitfalls of the tunnel tube sloping from north to south were underestimated. The main problem was the extremely strong water pressure in places. Good progress was made on the south side, from Trimbach , where the water could flow freely, but on the north side the difficulties increased. The hard limestone could be drilled through, but the water penetrating caused problems. Because it could not flow freely here and in the shafts, it had to be laboriously pumped out of the tunnel by hand. Some of the workers had to work in knee-high water, which made the already difficult working conditions even more difficult. These and the living conditions of the workers were examined extensively.

Fire accident

Memorial stone in Hauenstein SO

On May 28, 1857, another accident occurred during the construction of the Hauenstein summit tunnel. A tunnel forge ( Esse ) was set up at Shaft 1 , and at noon an unusually strong draft blew out the lamps. In the shaft, the support beams and boards covered with a thick layer of soot had caught fire . Some of the workers were able to save themselves from the collapse of the burning rafters and boards. Huge masses of earth rumbled into the tunnel and cut off 52 workers on their way back. In order to extinguish the fire, the contents of an entire pond were led from above into shaft 1. Thereupon an attempt was made to dig a passage through the debris cone from the tunnel. But when the debris cone, which was completely loamy from the water, was drilled, enormous amounts of poisonous carbon oxide gases emerged from it. After some time, the rescue attempt was stopped because eleven rescuers died from poisoning and around 500 men were carried unconscious out of the tunnel. Subsequently, various means were tried in vain to achieve better air circulation . The breakthrough finally came on the eighth day after the accident. In the tunnel behind the barricade, all 52 trapped people were found dead, who had probably died as a result of the gases on the first day after the accident. The accident cost the lives of a total of 63 workers.

inauguration

Thürnen, Sissach (1914–1918)

Aare bridge on the old Hauenstein line near Olten, photo between 1912 and 1916

On May 1st, 1858, the large structure, the most demanding section of the Swiss Central Railway's route network , was inaugurated with a big ceremony. Magnificently wreathed locomotives , including the Ec 2/5 28 Geneva locomotive (today at SBB Historic), pulled the first pageant from the direction of Basel through the mountain to Trimbach, where a fairground was set up on the former tunnel construction site. The main line of the Centralbahn to Olten station , an important crossing point, was finally open for rail traffic between Basel and the Swiss plateau.

business

With a gradient of 26.3 per thousand, the Läufelfinger route was one of the steepest routes in the railway network at that time. As the second line in Switzerland, it has been expanded in sections to double lanes. As a precautionary measure, you initially drove to the right in order to be able to use the track on the mountain side on the steep descent from Läufelfingen to Sissach. It was not until June 1, 1895 that the railway adapted to the connecting lines and switched to left-hand operation.

In order to be able to cope with this steep approach route with heavily loaded freight trains, up to two leader locomotives were used. After the train had overcome the incline, the steam locomotives were uncoupled again in Läufelfingen and rolled backwards while idling. In depot in Sissach was held up to four bias locomotives under steam. The water from the spring in the Reusli was led into the water tower, from where the water tanks of the locomotives could be filled with water using the water crane . In order to be able to guarantee the demanding railway operations, locomotive drivers , stokers and mechanics lived on the station premises during the service period . The former depot with the sleeping quarters of the locomotive staff, various storage buildings, the water tower with the water crane, the turntable that can be turned with muscle power and the forge in which repairs were carried out have been preserved to this day.

today

ICN between Gelterkinden and Tecknau

After the construction of the base tunnel, the old Hauenstein line increasingly lost its importance and in 1938 was reduced from double to single lane. Only in Läufelfingen is there still an alternative point today.

On the timetable change on May 22, 1977, 1st class was canceled on some branch lines, including on this line Olten – Läufelfingen – Sissach.

At the end of the 1990s, the line was threatened with closure. After the operation was replaced by buses for almost a year in 1997, regional trains are now running again between Sissach and Olten. In 2006, the "Läufelfingerli" was again acutely threatened with being hired, but the district administrator of the canton of Basel-Landschaft refused to switch to bus operation on November 16 and secured its financing (as line S9 of the trinational Basel S-Bahn ) until 2009 In the relevant debates, the switch to bus operation was justified by the low number of passengers and the low level of cost coverage of 19 percent (compared to 63 percent for the S3 (Hauenstein base line) or 70 to 80 percent for the tram lines in the Lower Basel area); the limited funds for public transport could be used more effectively if the promotion of rail transport were directed towards the densely populated agglomeration areas; In Homburgertal, with its sometimes quite large distances between train stations and the villages to be served, the bus is better suited to provide a needs-based offer. The proponents of maintaining rail operations countered that a bus operator would never be able to offer an equivalent substitute for the train (for example in terms of comfort and punctuality). In 2016 there are again efforts to move operations between Sissach and Olten to the road from 2020. According to the will of the Basel government, passenger traffic on the Sissach-Läufelfingen-Olten line is to be taken over by buses.

In May 2008 the 150th anniversary of the old Hauenstein line was celebrated with a steam train and an exhibition. The S9 ran free of charge on the festival weekend, and “FLIRT” railcars were used.

Steam locomotive in Läufelfingen

The company Modern Steam am Hauenstein proposed to carry out the scheduled operation with modern steam locomotives from the company DLM . In addition to business and commuter traffic, this could attract tourists who come to Hauenstein for the additional steam train experience . The prices for the commuter subscriptions should stay the same, single tickets (for tourists) would be more expensive, the number of passengers, the income and thus the cost recovery should increase according to the business plan of the GmbH. During the autumn vacation 2009 (Sept. 26th - Oct. 11th, 2009) a scheduled demonstration was carried out with the steam locomotive 52 8055 to prove the feasibility of this project. A shuttle train with a converted steam locomotive and control car is planned for permanent operation, which can be driven inexpensively by a driver in one-man operation. At the beginning of August 2010, the DR 52 8055, which had been converted accordingly, started a scheduled trial operation.

In spring 2017, the district administrator of the canton of Basel-Landschaft refused to continue to contribute 840,000 francs a year to the operation of the S9. Should the electorate also refuse the annual credit in the referendum vote, the S9 will be replaced by a fine. However, the route is to be retained for freight transport. This decision was rejected in the referendum vote on November 26, 2017: Around 65 percent of the electorate said “No” to the closure of the “Läufelfingerli”, with a participation of 28.83 percent.

The Hauenstein Base Tunnel

Line (Sissach–) Tecknau – Olten (SBB-Kursbuchfeld 500)

Length 8134 meters, construction period 1912–1916

prehistory

The trains on the old Hauenstein route became longer and heavier and because of the steep gradients , freight trains often had to have leader and push locomotives. This made the operation cumbersome and expensive, because the trains had to stop in Sissach and Läufelfingen to add or uncouple the additional locomotives . When the Swiss Federal Railways took over the Centralbahngesellschaft network in 1901 , they were soon looking for an alternative route to Olten . In 1909 the route via Gelterkinden - Tecknau was decided.

construction

Two men with a drill in the bottom gallery of the Hauenstein base tunnel

In 1912, excavation work began on the base (base tunnel ) of the mountain. The 8 km long tunnel was built in four years. In the course of the half century that had passed since the outbreak of the vertex tunnel, the methods of tunnel construction had fundamentally changed. Instead of manual labor, drills were now used, and smokeless locomotives instead of horses. A high-performance pumping station was also built as a precaution, as water ingress was also expected here.

The opening of the new line was celebrated on January 8, 1916. The Läufelfinger route with the summit tunnel became a branch line and the Sissach-Gelterkinden-Bahn tram ceased operations.

today

The Hauenstein base line is now one of the busiest railway lines in Switzerland. It is a part of the north-south axis of the freight , the freight trains of SBB Cargo , BLS Cargo is frequented and other companies, including the trains of the Rolling Highway Freiburg i. Brsg. – Novara for trucks with a corner height of up to 4 meters. In passenger transport, the route is used every half or one hour by (partly double-decker ) InterRegio and Intercity trains on the Basel - Zurich / Bern / Lucerne routes and the S3 S-Bahn Basel line from Olten to Basel and on to Pruntrut . The cross-section of the base tunnel of 48 m² allows a cruising speed of 140 km / h. In the tunnel, equally fast counter-trains and (somewhat slower) freight trains are often crossed.

Due to the high volume of traffic, there is a threat of a capacity bottleneck . Solutions are therefore being sought to increase the capacity of the line. So far, the stations and the safety systems have been adapted in order to realize a closer train sequence . Already in connection with the project of the New Main Transversal (NHT) and now with the Bahn 2000 and the Neue Eisenbahn-Alpentransversalen (NEAT) the search was on for a way to increase the capacity of the line even further. This was initially achieved by bypassing the Pratteln bottleneck through the 5 kilometer long Eagle Tunnel between Muttenz and Liestal . As a continuation, a third Jura breakthrough is now up for debate, the so-called Wisenberg tunnel between Liestal or Sissach and Olten, with a connection to the west-east transversal towards Aarau-Zurich or Olten-Bern. This project has so far failed due to funding.

Train stations

Today's Frenkendorf-Füllinsdorf train station has been renamed several times. Initially it was called Niederschöntal, then Frenkendorf, then Niederschöntal-Frenkendorf and since 1936 Frenkendorf-Füllinsdorf. On April 8, 1984 the Domino 67 track diagram was put into operation.

Accidents

On March 13, 1957, between Sissach and the Itingen stop, ten runaway passenger cars collided with a freight train at the Gelterkinden station . Two railway officials were slightly injured and there was significant property damage.

On October 6, 2011, came EW II - shuttle with a Re 4/4 II, in addition to the half hour perverted the train from Basel to Olten, at the entrance to the station Olten with a NPZ shuttle laterally. The NPZ Sissach – Läufelfingen – Olten had passed a signal indicating a stop . The Re 4/4 II 11184 locomotive and the first two cars of the EW II shuttle train tipped to one side. The engine driver of the Re 4/4 II was seriously injured and one passenger was slightly injured. The ZUB train control system installed at the time of the accident was not yet in operation.

literature

• Carl [von] Etzel: Supplement to the bridges and valley crossings of the Swiss railways. Basel 1859 ( doi: 10.3931 / e-rara-39910 )
• W [ilhelm] Pressel, J. Kauffmann: The construction of the Hauenstein tunnel on the Swiss Central Railway . Basel / Biel 1860 ( doi: 10.3931 / e-rara-14836 ).
• Robert von Zabiensky: On the construction of the Hauenstein base tunnel. In: Newspaper of the Association of German Railway Administrations, Volume 52, No. 11 (February 10, 1912), pp. 181–183.
• Alfred Etterlin: The renovation of the Hauenstein base tunnel . In: Swiss Railway Review , No. 5/1985, pp. 147–158.
• Heinz Frey, Ernst Glättli: shoveling, blasting, carting: working and living conditions of railway construction workers in Switzerland around the middle of the 19th century . Chronos, Zurich 1987. ISBN 3-905278-19-7 .
• SBB specialist agency for monument protection issues, Society for Swiss Art History (ed.): The upper Hauenstein line: Railway buildings since 1853 (architectural and technical history of the railways in Switzerland, volume 2). Scheidegger & Spiess, Zurich, 2009. ISBN 978-3-85881-287-2 .
• Heinz Spinnler, Luigi Coletti: Construction of the Hauenstein base line Sissach-Olten 1912–1916 . Eital-Verlag, Tecknau 2013, ISBN 978-3-033-04000-7 .
• Angela Jursitzka, Helmut Pawelka: Carl von Etzel. A life for the railroad , Tyrolia-Verlag, Innsbruck / Vienna 2017, ISBN 978-3-7022-3598-7 .
• The accident in the Hauenstein tunnel . In: The Gazebo . Issue 28–29, 1857, pp. 388–392, 400–406 ( full text [ Wikisource ]).

Web links

Commons : Hauenstein Base Tunnel  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Modern Steam am Hauenstein , Museumsbahn am Hauenstein, private website, Frenkendorf (Switzerland), accessed on August 24, 2010.
• Zeitschrift für Bauwesen (PDF; 13.6 MB; 128 pages) 1858 / Issue 2 (Construction) Report of the tunnel, as viewed April 22, 1857. Geological length profile, 4 normal profiles (pp. 206–248), accessed on August 24 2010.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ quoted from Dorothee Huber: The building in the landscape , in: The upper Hauenstein line. Railway buildings since 1853, Zurich, 2009, pp. 9–16, here p. 9.
2. ^ Ernst Mathys: Important Events and Information in the Swiss Railway System 1841-1940 , Bern, 1941, pp. 8-9.
3. ↑ Othmar Birkner: Two outstanding engineering structures . In: The upper Hauenstein line. Railway construction since 1853 . Zurich 2009, pp. 89–99, here pp. 94–99.
4. ↑ The Läufelfingen station from 1861 in swisstopo's “Time Travel”
5. ↑ aleph.unibas.ch
6. ^ Dorothee Huber: The building in the landscape , in: The upper Hauenstein line. Railway buildings since 1853, Zurich, 2009, pp. 9–16, here p. 15.
7. ↑ Carl [von] Etzel: Supplement to the bridges and valley crossings of the Swiss railways . Basel, 1859. ( doi: 10.3931 / e-rara-39910 )
8. ^ W [ilhelm] Pressel, J. Kauffmann: The construction of the Hauenstein tunnel on the Swiss Central Railway , Basel and Biel, 1860 ( doi: 10.3931 / e-rara-14836 ), p. 2.
9. ^ W [ilhelm] Pressel, J. Kauffmann: The construction of the Hauenstein tunnel on the Swiss Central Railway , Basel and Biel, 1860 ( doi: 10.3931 / e-rara-14836 ), p. 4.
10. ↑ Othmar Birkner: Two outstanding engineering structures , in: The upper Hauenstein line. Railway buildings since 1853, Zurich, 2009, pp. 89–99, here pp. 89–94.
11. ↑ Heinz Frey, Ernst Glättli: shovel, blast, cart: Working and living conditions of railway construction workers in Switzerland around the middle of the 19th century , Zurich, 1987.
12. ↑ Hans-Peter Bärtschi: Swiss Central Railway. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .
13. ↑ Railway Amateur 01/1977 page 14
14. ^ Minutes of the district council meeting on November 16, 2006
15. ↑ Report of the Building and Planning Commission November 7, 2006
16. ↑ sda: Southwest: Switzerland: The "Läufelfingerli" railway line will probably be replaced by buses. Badische Zeitung, September 20, 2016, accessed on September 20, 2016 . 
17. ↑ Martin Stohler: Week of the day: The "Läufelfingerli" - a train with history. Week of the day, November 26, 2016, accessed December 1, 2016 . 
18. ↑ Article in the Volksstimme of March 19, 2009 (PDF; 1.3 MB)
19. ↑ Steam locomotive back in service. (No longer available online.) SF Tagesschau , July 31, 2010, archived from the original on December 28, 2013 ; Retrieved January 2, 2011 . 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.  
20. ↑ Last stop: Läufelfingen. In: Tages-Anzeiger from April 14, 2017.
21. ↑ sda: The "Läufelfingerli" continues - massive no to the 8th GLA. Volksstimme, November 26, 2017, accessed December 3, 2017 . 
22. ↑ sda: The Läufelfingerli is not on the siding: Baselbieter voters let the S-Bahn continue. Volksstimme, November 26, 2017, accessed December 3, 2017 . 
23. ↑ EA 7/84, page 449
24. ↑ Bruno Lämmli: Schw. Bundesbahnen Ae 6/6 No. 11'401 - 11'520. Operational use. Retrieved October 18, 2013 . 
25. ^ Mathias Rellstab: Another signal case resulting in an accident at the SBB . In: Swiss Railway Review . No. 11 . Minirex, 2011, ISSN  1022-7113 , p. 536-537 .