Jura Railway

The title of this article is ambiguous. With Jura Railways which is Chemins de fer du Jura (CJ), respectively. Bernische Jurabahn was the German name of the Chemins de fer du Jura bernois (JB), Neuenburger Jurabahn the German name for the Jura neuchâtelois (JN).

Jurabahn (Basel – Biel)
NPZ passes Angenstein Castle
Timetable field :	230
Route length:	71 km
Gauge :	1435 mm ( standard gauge )
Power system :	15 kV 16.7 Hz  ~
Legend from Mulhouse 123.0 Basel SBB SBB routes to Olten , Brugg – Zurich and Basel Bad. Bf. Basel tram Wolf tunnel 212 m 121.0 Basel tricorn Connection curve from Muttenz Birs bridge right / left 44 m / 46 m Basel – Dornach railway line 118.3 Munchenstein Basel – Dornach railway line 115.5 Dornach - Arlesheim 113.0 Aesch Angenstein tunnel 64 m 111.0 Duggingen 108.8 Grellingen Lower Kessiloch bridge 100 m Upper Kessiloch Bridge 91 m 103.5 To force 100.6 To run 97.5 Bärschwil (bus stop closed) Bärschwil tunnel 116 m Birsbrücke Bärschwil Liesberg tunnel 184 m Birs bridge Liesberg 94.2 Liesberg (bus stop closed) Birs bridge Soyhières 44 m 88.5 Soyhières (stop closed) Delémont Sorrel Bridge 84.6 Delémont change of direction SBB route to Porrentruy – Delle 81.1 Courrendlin (bus stop closed) Choindez II and III tunnels 165 and 255 m respectively Choindez I tunnel 30 m 79.2 Choindez (bus stop closed) Verrerie-de-Roches tunnel 112 m Verrerie-de-Moutier tunnel 32 m 75.8 Roches BE (bus stop closed) Moutier 9 tunnel 13 m Moutier 8 tunnel 18 m Moutier 7 tunnel 54 m Moutier 6 tunnel 23 m Moutier 5 tunnel 60 m Birs bridge Moutier Moutier tunnel 4 8 m Moutier tunnel 3 7 m Moutier 2 tunnel 11 m Moutier 1 tunnel 31 m BLS - Weissenstein Line from Solothurn 73.4 0.0 Moutier SBB route to Tavannes – Sonceboz Grenchenberg tunnel 8578 m Oberdorf Bridge 272 m 10.7 Grenchen north Mösliviadukt 285 m 13.0 SBB route from Olten – Solothurn 13.0 88.0 Lengnau (only stops for trains to / from Solothurn) 90.2 Pieterlen (only stops for trains to / from Solothurn) 94.0 Biel / Bienne Bözingenfeld / Champs-de-Boujean (Only trains to / from Solothurn stop) 95.8 Biel Mett (only stops for trains to / from Solothurn) 98.0 Connection curve to Bern 98.0 SBB route from Bern 99.4 33.8 Biel / Bienne Connection to ASm - BTI to Täuffelen - Ins SBB route to La Chaux-de-Fonds SBB route to Neuchâtel

The Jura Railway is a standard-gauge railway line operated by the Swiss Federal Railways (SBB) and BLS AG . It leads from Basel along the Birs into the French-speaking Jura to Delémont and Biel / Bienne . The traffic on the route is in the roadmap field of the official 230 official timetable displayed.

history

South portal of the Grenchenberg tunnel in Grenchen

Rock breakthrough between Roches and Moutier before electrification

Historical photo of the Mösliviadukt of the Münster-Lengnau Railway

The railway line was built in several stages by the Compagnie du Jura bernois (JB) and formed the main line of the company operating in the " Bernese Jura ". On April 30, 1874, the Biel - Sonceboz - Tavannes line and the Sonceboz - Convers branch (as part of the connection to La Chaux-de-Fonds ) were opened. The opening of the Basel – Delémont line followed on September 23, 1875. The gap between Tavannes and Delémont was further reduced on December 16, 1876 with the opening of the two-sided sections Tavannes – Court and Moutier – Delémont. The continuous connection from Biel to Basel was finally opened on May 24, 1877, when the Court – Moutier section went into operation.

The route described was the shortest rail connection from Basel to Biel until the Grenchenberg Tunnel was opened in 1915. Also led to the First World War the northern rail link between Switzerland and France Delle , were used while the section Basel-Delémont Jura railway line, the railway Delémont-Delle , the railway line Belfort-Delle and in de Compagnie l'Est remaining section the Paris – Mulhouse railway line , which did not have to be ceded to the German Empire along with Alsace .

The so-called Münster-Lengnau Railway (MLB) was created to shorten the Delémont – Biel route and thus also the travel time from Biel to Basel or Belfort . The approximately 13-kilometer-long railway line consists essentially of the almost 8.6-kilometer-long, single-track Grenchenberg tunnel . The Berner Alpenbahn-Gesellschaft Bern – Lötschberg – Simplon built the MLB to improve the access to their Lötschberg route ; While the line is owned by BLS, the trains have been run by SBB since it opened in 1915.

After the Second World War , the SNCF invested in the expansion of the Belfort – Mulhouse – Basel line, whereby the old “Elsässerbahn” degraded the line via Delle to a regional branch line. The Belfort – Delle line was closed for passenger traffic in 1992, the cross-border section Boncourt – Delle followed in 1996. In connection with the construction of the LGV Rhin-Rhône , the French line section was reactivated as a feeder connection in December 2018; the Boncourt-Delle section was reopened in a symbolic act in December 2006.

A large part of the feature film Treffpunkt Todesbrücke was shot on the Jura Railway. However, other sections of the route can also be seen, for example the Saint-Ursanne viaduct .

Accidents

Bridge collapse in Münchenstein, 1891

On June 14, 1891, the biggest railway disaster in Switzerland to date occurred: In Münchenstein BL, below the village, the railway bridge over the Birs , built by Gustave Eiffel , collapsed under a train coming from Basel. Three cars and the two locomotives crashed into the high Birs. 78 people were killed and 131 injured. The cause of this accident was the buckling of a strut that was too weak.

→ Main article : Münchenstein railway accident

When the express train Cerbère - Geneva - Basel - Hamburg passed a switch in Choindez on March 26, 1974 , the first bogie of the dining car was steered to the left and the second to the right track of the double track. The dining car rolled one kilometer on both tracks and passed the short, double-lane Choindez I tunnel. In the two parallel single-lane tunnels Choindez II and III, the dining car crashed into the rock, killing two German nationals and one Swiss citizen and injuring 27 people.

Route

Rotonde Delémont with steam locomotive C 5/6 2978

ICN on the Mösliviadukt near Grenchen

From Basel, the route runs along the Wolf freight yard and in Birseck through the suburbs of Münchenstein (see collapse of the railway bridge in Münchenstein below), Arlesheim , Dornach SO and Aesch BL . Here the railway in the Klus crosses under Angenstein Castle in a short tunnel . The railway now meanders along the Birs to the southwest to Grellingen . During the First and Second World Wars, the two railway bridges over the Birs in Chessiloch were guarded by Swiss Army troops . The regiments' coats of arms and inscriptions, which were carved into the rock walls by the soldiers, still remind us of this today. In the opening, widening Laufental , via Laufen and Liesberg , you finally reach Delémont ( Delsberg ), the capital of the French-speaking canton of Jura .

The historic Rotonde Delémont is located in Delémont. This former locomotive depot / round shed with turntable is now home to the Historical Railway Company (HEG) , which focuses on the rescue, restoration and operation of historical rolling stock of the Swiss railways. Leaving the station straight on, the Delémont – Delle line goes through Porrentruy and Boncourt ; it has been served hourly by the S3 of the Basel S-Bahn since December 2004 .

In the direction of Biel, the train makes a change of direction (hairpin). After the Delémont plain, the train arrives at Courrendlin and from there through the gorges at Choindez and Roches BE . In this transverse gorge, typical of the Jura, there are numerous short rock cuts. There are nine of them on the two-kilometer stretch between Roches and Moutier. The longest of these is 60 meters, the shortest only seven meters long. Train Station Moutier ( Munster ) achieved from the same side and the distance of the Solothurn-Münster Railway (SMB), today BLS , of Solothurn ago.

Both the original Jura railway line, which leads via Tavannes and Sonceboz to Biel, and the newer Münster-Lengnau railway, which leads via Grenchen to Biel, leave Moutier station in the same direction. South of Moutier, the trains on the MLB route run into the 8,578 meter long Grenchenberg tunnel, after which Grenchen Nord station is reached. The MLB line in Lengnau merges into the Olten – Solothurn – Biel line - part of the SBB's so-called Jura foot line - and uses it to Biel.

Web links

Commons : Jurabahn  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Website of the "Historic Railway Company" (HEG) - Rotonde Delémont

Individual evidence

1. ^ Trois morts, vingt-sept blessés à Choindez. (Le Temps - archives historiques) (No longer available online.) Journal de Genève, Geneva, March 27, 1974, p. 9 , archived from the original on December 2, 2013 ; Retrieved November 14, 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.