Solothurn-Munster Railway

The Solothurn-Münster-Bahn ( SMB ), also called Solothurn-Moutier-Bahn or Chemin de fer Soleure-Moutier , is a former railway company based in Solothurn in Switzerland , which owned the line from Solothurn to Moutier in the Bernese Jura. It started operations in 1908 and merged in 1997 with the Emmental-Burgdorf-Thun-Bahn (EBT) and the United Huttwil-Bahnen (VHB), with which the SMB had already formed an operating group before that, to form Regionalverkehr Mittelland (RM), who then took over the operation of the 22-kilometer SMB route between Solothurn West and Moutier (outdated Münster ).

First SMB timetable, valid until April 30, 1909

history

prehistory

As early as the first half of the 19th century, the city of Solothurn was working on a railway line through the first Jura chain further into the Schwarzbubenland , but this project was not pursued for financial reasons. The proposals from the 1860s for the construction of a horse-drawn railway from Solothurn via Welschenrohr to Moutier and a standard-gauge line with the same route were not specified. In the 1880s there were renewed efforts to build a line from Solothurn to Moutier , mainly because of the border changes after the Franco-German War of 1870/71 , as a result of which a railway line from Belfort to the Swiss Plateau was required Niklaus Riggenbach proposed the construction of a cogwheel line through the Weissenstein , the canton of Solothurn responded with a counter-opinion, in which the construction of an adhesion railway was presented as more feasible. The canton then submitted a license application for the construction of a corresponding railway in 1889, and the Federal Council granted the license on December 9 of the same year. The canton of Bern was willing to subsidize the line, mainly because the cantonal government hoped that it would connect to the planned Lötschberg line , but the canton of Solothurn was not ready, which meant that the initiative committee resigned in 1895. On April 15, 1898, the Federal Assembly again granted a concession for the same line, this time both the city and the canton of Solothurn agreed to co-finance the project. On November 13, 1898, the Solothurn canton population approved the construction of the line in a referendum with a two-thirds majority. The situation in the canton of Bern was less clear, as the line from Moutier to Lengnau was meanwhile in the planning stage, which was strategically better located, but significantly more expensive, while the Solothurn-Münster-Bahn was classified more as a local line, although this line was also suitable for transit traffic. Finally, on October 7, 1903 , the Great Council spoke out in favor of supporting the Solothurn-Münster Railway. Shortly afterwards, however, the BLS received the concession for the construction and operation of the line from Moutier to Lengnau, so it was clear even before construction began on both lines that the Solothurn-Münster-Bahn would only be a branch line.

Foundation and construction

Geissloch Viaduct of the SMB near Bellach

Ordinary share for 25 francs of the Solothurn-Münster-Bahn from June 26, 1948

The constituent general assembly of the company took place on April 30, 1899, but for the reasons mentioned above and because the financing of the route did not come about earlier, the start of construction was delayed until 1903. The construction work finally began on December 28, 1903 recorded. The construction of the line proved to be difficult, on the one hand the area to be built on was unstable, so that there were frequent landslides , on the other hand the construction of 84 engineering structures was necessary on the relatively short stretch . The building material for these buildings came mainly from the quarries in Lommiswil and Gänsbrunnen . The largest construction site on the route was the future station area in Oberdorf , as the Weissenstein tunnel was built from there , so there was, as with other tunnel construction sites in Switzerland, a temporary settlement for the tunnel workers nearby. During the construction of the route, two people died at the Geissloch Viaduct, the exact causes are unknown. When operations began in 1908, the construction work had not yet been completed; the problem with the landslides in particular had not yet been resolved, which meant that the work was not completed until 1909, i.e. in the first full year of operation.

Since the majority of the railway travels through the sparsely populated Jura , it repeatedly had to struggle with financial difficulties.

Electrical operation using the alternating current system common to the Swiss Federal Railways (SBB) with a voltage of 15 kilovolts and a frequency of 16⅔ Hertz was started on the SMB on October 2, 1932.

In the 1970s, the railway was able to develop into a suburban railway in the area northwest of the city of Solothurn.

The joint operation with EBT and VHB - under joint management by EBT as the largest of the three companies - was finally merged on January 1, 1997 in the company Regionalverkehr Mittelland (RM). The RM for its part merged on June 27, 2006 with the BLS Lötschbergbahn (BLS) to form BLS AG . Since the timetable change in December 2010, the passenger trains on the route owned by BLS have been operated by SBB. This happened (together with the delivery of the regional trains between Murten and Payerne ) in return for the takeover of SBB offers in the Lucerne area by BLS.

Locomotives

Steam locomotives Ed 3/4

Steam locomotive Ed 3/4 No. 2 of the Emmental Historical Railway Association, ex SMB

At the start of operations, the SMB locomotive park consisted of three Ed 3/4 steam locomotives (No. 1–3) supplied by the Swiss Locomotive and Machine Works (SLM) in the same design as had previously been supplied to the Sensetalbahn .

After the electrification of the line in 1932, Ed 3/4 No. 1 was sold in 1934 to the Dreispitzverwaltung Basel (as No. 6 Ruchfeld ), came to Lonza in Visp in 1945 (as No. 1) and was then used by Technorama in Winterthur from 1965 reserved. The locomotive has been in a depot at the Zürcher Oberland Steam Railway Association since 1972 and is waiting for an overhaul.

Locomotive no. 2 reached the Zurich gas works in 1932 (as no. 2) and from there to Holzverzuckerungs AG (Hovag) in Ems in 1946 (also as no. 2). In 1973 the locomotive was bought by two private steam locomotive enthusiasts in Langenthal and thus saved from the cutting torch. After a comprehensive overhaul, the locomotive was fully operational again from 1985 and ran extra trains. In 1996 the association Dampflok Freunde Langenthal was founded and the steam locomotive was handed over to the association for use in trustworthy hands. At the end of 2013, this association was integrated into the Historical Emmental Railway Association (VHE), which is now responsible for the maintenance and operation of the SMB No. 2 steam locomotive.

The only one of the SMB's steam locomotives that has so far been scrapped is No. 3, which was sold to the Bulle-Romont-Bahn (BR) in 1933 , where it was decommissioned in 1951 and transported to Belgium as scrap in 1953.

Steam locomotive Ec 4/5

Steam locomotive Ec 4/5 No. 11 of the Steam Railway Association Bern, ex SMB

In 1911, the SMB acquired the superheated steam twin tank locomotive Ec 4/5 No. 11 to strengthen its fleet of locomotives . The mighty locomotive with a 1'D wheel arrangement, a drive wheel diameter of 1330 mm, an operating weight of 74.7 t and a power of 1250 hp was produced at the SLM. Their boiler and engine dimensions corresponded to the SBB freight locomotives of the series C 4/5 No. 2601-2619. The SMB was very satisfied with the performance of this steam locomotive from the start. It made it possible to almost double the train weights on the ramps with a gradient of 25 or 28 ‰ (maximum permissible load 220 t). The locomotive always enjoyed preferential treatment at the Moutier depot. During the steam locomotive era, only titular leaders drove on the Ec 4/5 . The reason was technical features and the Riggenbach counter pressure brake .

The last regular use was made of the locomotive in 1932 during the re -electrification of the former Burgdorf-Thun Railway from three-phase to single-phase alternating current and the electrification of the Emmental Railway . In the same year, the locomotive was thoroughly overhauled again in the SBB workshop in Biel. Subsequently, it was operationally remedied as a catenary-independent reserve locomotive in Moutier. From time to time it was pulled out of the engine shed and heated up for the prescribed checks. In 1958, on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the SMB , it once again traveled the entire route from Solothurn to Moutier with anniversary trains.

In 1966 the locomotive was externally refurbished in the EBT workshop in Burgdorf and then erected as a memorial in Oberdorf. Only 19 years later it was brought back to the Burgdorf depot by the Steam Railway Association in Bern , transferred to Meiningen, Germany, in 1992, where it was thoroughly revised at the former DR repair shop . The acceptance test between Burgdorf and Solothurn then took place successfully on November 18, 1992. Until 2012 the locomotive was available to the Steam Railway Association Bern for special trips. After 20 years of operation, however, another major overhaul was due. The locomotive is therefore not operational at the moment in Konolfingen.

Electric locomotives Be 4/4

Locomotive Be 4/4 No. 172 of the SMB alongside other locomotives in the joint venture with EBT and VHB

In 1932, the SMB, together with the Emmental Railway and the Burgdorf-Thun Railway, purchased the same Be 4/4 electric locomotives . The SMB was given the numbers 107 and 108. These locomotives could be used universally in passenger and freight traffic and have proven themselves very well in their 70 years of operation. In 1962 the numbers of the SMB locomotives were changed to 171 and 172.

No. 171 was prepared as a historic machine in 1999 and sold to Swisstrain SA in 2006.

No. 172 was canceled in November 2000.

Electric locomotive Re 4/4 III

In 1983, SMB ordered a Re 4/4 ^III with the number 181 from SLM / BBC and put it into operation. After the merger of the SMB with the Emmental-Burgdorf-Thun-Bahn and the United Huttwil-Bahnen to form the Mittelland regional traffic , the locomotive was given the number 115 and was also written to as Re 436 115.

After the rail reform, which allowed the SBB to bring the freight trains directly to their destination with their locomotives via network access, the Re 436 were only partially needed. The equipment (train protection, radio) of the locomotives was therefore adapted to the SBB locomotives and some of them were rented to SBB Cargo , where they were also used in multiple control with the SBB Re 6/6 on the Gotthard. Finally, the locomotives were used for the trains of the combined transport to Domodossola and the RM outsourced this transport into a separate company called Crossrail AG , which at the end of 2005, including the Re 436 locomotives, was sold to Babcock & Brown . The locomotives are now equipped with ETCS Level 2 for traffic in the Lötschberg Base Tunnel .

See also

• Solothurn – Moutier railway line

literature

• Werner Weber, Jürg Suter: Solothurn-Münster Railway. The Solothurn – Moutier line from BLS AG. Buffer stop, Leissigen 2008 ISBN 978-3-907579-28-2 .

Web links

• The history of the Solothurn – Münster-Bahn SMB , on the BLS AG website, accessed on November 29, 2018

Individual evidence

1. ^ Solothurn-Münster Railway. The Solothurn – Moutier line from BLS AG. P. 9 f.
2. ^ Solothurn-Münster Railway. The Solothurn – Moutier line from BLS AG. P. 10 f.
3. ^ Solothurn-Münster Railway. The Solothurn – Moutier line from BLS AG. P. 12 f.
4. ^ Solothurn-Münster Railway. The Solothurn – Moutier line from BLS AG. P. 13
5. ↑ Aktiensammler 01/10, p. 14f, ISSN  1611-8006
6. ^ Solothurn-Münster Railway. The Solothurn – Moutier line from BLS AG. P. 14 f.
7. ^ Solothurn-Münster Railway. The Solothurn – Moutier line from BLS AG. P. 15
8. ^ Solothurn-Münster Railway. The Solothurn – Moutier line from BLS AG. P. 16
9. ^ Solothurn-Münster Railway. The Solothurn – Moutier line from BLS AG. P. 17
10. ^ Solothurn-Münster Railway. The Solothurn – Moutier line from BLS AG. P. 19
11. ^ Solothurn-Münster Railway. The Solothurn – Moutier line from BLS AG. P. 39
12. ↑ Annual Report 2010 (PDF; 4 MB) BLS. P. 6, 15. Retrieved April 29, 2012.
13. ^ The Solothurn – Münster Railway - Steam Locomotives , accessed on May 22, 2016
14. ↑ Ed 3/4 No. 2 ( Memento of the original from April 22, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) 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. , accessed on May 22, 2016 
15. ↑ Steam locomotive Ec 4/5 No. 11 ( Memento of the original from April 2, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) 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. , accessed June 1, 2016 
16. ↑ The Solothurn – Münster Railway - Electric Locomotives , accessed on May 22, 2016
17. ↑ Notre Be 4/4 171 , website of the Swisstrain Association , accessed on May 22, 2016