The Lötschberg is a paddle wheel steamer built in 1914 , which is the only steamship (DS) to operate on Lake Brienz . The ship is named after the Lötschberg Alpine crossing . It is operated by BLS Schifffahrt and operates in the timetable and excursion traffic.
The saloon steamer "Lötschberg" was the 299th and last paddle steamer from the company Escher, Wyss & Cie. built in Zurich and commissioned on July 25, 1914. After just nine days, it was shut down for years because of the outbreak of the First World War . Later, until 1923, the ship only operated two days a week. During the Second World War , the ship only sailed on beautiful Sundays. Instead of coal, wood was used for heating. In 1968 the fuel was switched to heating oil.
In the winter of 2000/2001, DS Lötschberg received an extensive general overhaul with a boiler replacement, which cost four million Swiss francs. In 2008, the International Council for the Preservation of Monuments, ICOMOS, honored the careful restoration of the saloon steamer, which was carried out in accordance with monument preservation principles, with the "Special Award 2008".
literature
Rolf Grossenbacher: Lötschberg - Memoirs of a Steamship from the Belle Epoque, Verlag Schlaefli AG, 1992, out of print
Erich Liechti, Jürg Meister, Josef Gwerder: The history of shipping on Lake Thun and Lake Brienz , Schlaefli & Maurer, Interlaken 2002, ISBN 3-85884-016-5
Rolf Lemberg, Gerhard Schmid, Hans Peter Würsten: Paddle Steamer Lötschberg, Restoration 2001 , Friends of Steam Shipping Lake Thun and Lake Brienz (ed.), Thun 2001, ISBN 3-9522281-0-9
.jpg)
