Solothurn-Niederbipp Railway

Solothurn-Niederbipp Railway
Timetable field :	413
Route length:	14.54 km
Gauge :	1000 mm ( meter gauge )
Power system :	1200 V  =
Maximum slope :	36  ‰
Solothurn – Niederbipp
Legend 0.00 Solothurn 432  m above sea level M. Rötibrücke 127 m 0.80 Solothurn Baseltor 443  m above sea level M. 1.13 Solothurn stars 440  m above sea level M. 1.75 St. Catherine's 437  m above sea level M. 2.35 Field well 452  m above sea level M. 3.62 By the ponds 471  m above sea level M. 4.18 Riedholz 471  m above sea level M. 5.24 Rear reed wood 432  m above sea level M. 6.23 Flumenthal 463  m above sea level M. Siggeren 7.76 Attiswil 464  m above sea level M. 10.32 Wiedlisbach 470  m above sea level M. depot 11.71 Oberbipp 487  m above sea level M. End of three-rail track 12.31 Sidings Oberbipp 475  m above sea level M. 13.10 Buchli 465  m above sea level M. LJB from Langenthal Three-rail track 14.54 Niederbipp 468  m above sea level M. Transition to the Gäubahn Olten – Solothurn LJB to Oensingen (1907–1943)

Share over CHF 500 in the Solothurn-Niederbipp-Bahn from May 1, 1917

Be 4/8 111 at the Solothurn train station

The Solothurn-Niederbipp-Bahn (SNB) was a railway company in Switzerland . In 1999 it merged with the Oberaargau regional transport (RVO), the Biel-Täuffelen-Ins-Bahn (BTI) and the Oberaargauische Automobilkursen (OAK) to form the Aare Seeland mobil (ASm), which covers the 14.5 km long, meter-gauge SNB line from Solothurn to Niederbipp .

The railway is known locally as «Bipperlisi». This name has long since outgrown the vernacular and can be found in official communications from the Canton of Solothurn.

history

Start of operations

The Solothurn-Niederbipp-Bahn, based in Solothurn, opened its meter-gauge railway line from Niederbipp in the canton of Bern to the Baseltor station in Solothurn, in the canton of the same name , on January 9, 1918 . In Niederbipp there was a track connection to the also meter-gauge Langenthal-Jura-Bahn (LJB), which had started operating on the Langenthal –Niederbipp– Oensingen Schulhaus route as early as 1907. Accordingly, early on, cooperation with the LJB and the Langenthal-Melchnau Railway (LMB), which opened in 1917, was sought . For the power system, the choice fell on the 1200 volt direct current already used by the LJB .

In Solothurn at the Baseltor the SNB line ended north of the Aare , on the edge of the old town, while the Swiss Federal Railways (SBB) station was south of the Aare. The economically important proximity to the SBB train station was achieved with the construction of the Rötibrücke over the Aare and the opening of the tram-like section Solothurn Baseltor – Solothurn (SBB) on September 7, 1925. Since then, the end point of the SNB has been on Bahnhofplatz on the north side of the SBB train station.

The SNB was hardly affected by major changes in the years that followed, and only marginally affected those on the neighboring LJB and LMB. After the LJB shut down a section in Oensingen in 1928, the entire Niederbipp – Oensingen section followed on May 9, 1943, making Niederbipp a terminal station for the meter-gauge railways.

Mergers

On January 1, 1958, the LJB and the LMB merged to form the Oberaargau-Jura-Bahnen (OJB), with which the SNB concluded a new cooperation agreement in 1959. As a result of the cooperation, the SNB was able to do without its own workshop, and vehicle maintenance has since been carried out by the OJB workshop in Langenthal.

In order to transport standard-gauge freight wagons of the SBB on the meter -gauge route , a roller bolster system was put into operation in Niederbipp when the SNB opened , which could be used to serve delivery points to Riedholz. The system was also used by the LJB, which had been using the same system in Langenthal since 1909. This extremely complex system for large transport volumes was largely replaced on the SNB by the commissioning of the three-rail track between Niederbipp and the Oberbipp siding (tank farm) on March 7, 1970.

A first sign of the later merger is a formal agreement signed on April 5, 1984 between BTI, OJB, SNB, OAK, the Ligerz-Tessenberg-Bahn (LTB) and the Bielersee-Schiffahrts-Gesellschaft (BSG) under the name Oberaargau -Solothurn-Seeland-Transport (OSST) has been completed.

Before the merger came about, the partner railway OJB changed its name again on July 2, 1990 to Regionalverkehr Oberaargau (RVO). The OSST partners BTI, RVO, SNB and OAK finally merged in 1999 to form Aare Seeland mobil (ASm). The LTB was also merged into the ASm in 2003, while the BSG has remained legally independent to this day.

Railway line after the 1999 merger

Today's ASm route has now been extended again from Niederbipp to Oensingen. The groundbreaking ceremony took place on December 1, 2010, and the 1.7 kilometer line extension was commissioned when the timetable changed on December 9, 2012. Basically - however, it was laid out as a tram - this line already existed from 1907 to 1943 under the LJB and has already been Occasionally used by the SNB at the time.

Rolling stock

Solothurn-Niederbipp-Bahn in Buchli Niederbipp

Entering Be 4/8 111 and control car Bt 353 in Niederbipp

Railcar

• Be 4/4 301-304 (1966-1988), ex 83-86
• Be 4/8 110–112 (2008) and 113–115 (2011)
• Be 4/4 14 and Bt, ex FWB

Control car

• Bt 351-354, ex 102-105

Between 1966 and 1978, the SNB and the OJB jointly procured a total of six four-axle railcars (81–86) and five matching four-axle control cars (101–105). Under the OSST, a uniform numbering scheme was introduced for all participating railway companies, the SNB vehicles were given 300 numbers, while the (identical) OJB vehicles received 100 numbers. The orange-painted vehicles, sometimes referred to as "shaker cups", were parked, sold or scrapped.

renovation

With the decision to modernize the railway line of the former SNB, the rolling stock will also be renewed. In April 2005, the ASm initially put out tenders for three new low-floor multiple units for the entire Solothurn – Niederbipp – Langenthal route. The tender was decided in favor of Stadler Rail with the “ Meter gauge FLIRT ” concept . The vehicle has a similar modular structure as the new meter-gauge traction vehicles for the Forchbahn and Trogenerbahn . The new development was presented in April 2008 with the designation "STAR" (for: narrow-gauge multiple unit for attractive regional traffic ). The three trains that have been ordered have been in use for the ASm since summer 2008 - painted dark red. The old Bipperlisi fleet was completely replaced with three more trains.

See also

• Aare Seeland mobile

literature

• Jürg Aeschlimann: 100 years of the Solothurn-Niederbipp-Bahn. In: Eisenbahn Amateur , 6/2018, pp. 242–249.

Web links

Commons : Solothurn-Niederbipp-Bahn  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Aare Seeland mobile

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Reports from the Canton of Solothurn from January 9, 2018
2. ↑ New Niederbipp-Oensingen building: implementation. (No longer available online.) Aaare Seeland mobile, archived from the original on November 11, 2013 ; Retrieved April 13, 2012 . 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.  
3. ↑ New Bipperlisi was on its maiden voyage  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. szonline.ch, accessed on February 10, 2009