Swiss Northern Railway
| Swiss Northern Railway | |
|---|---|
| legal form | Corporation |
| founding | March 16, 1846 |
| resolution | July 1, 1853 |
| Reason for dissolution | Merger with the Zurich-Bodenseebahn to form the Swiss Northeast Railway |
| Seat | Zurich |
| management | Martin Escher |
| Branch | Rail transport |
The Swiss Northern Railway (SNB) was a railway company in Switzerland . On August 7, 1847, it opened the first railway line entirely on Swiss soil.
The SNB linked the cities of Zurich and Baden . It was planned to continue to Basel and Aarau . The SNB was popularly known as the Spanish Brötli Railway . In 1853 it merged with the Zurich-Bodenseebahn to form the Swiss Northeast Railway (NOB).
prehistory
Compared to neighboring countries, the age of the railways began relatively late in Switzerland. The reasons were topographical difficulties, but also the disagreement between the cantons . A particular obstacle was the lack of a legal basis, especially in the area of expropriations necessary for railway construction .
Colonel Friedrich Hünerwadel from Lenzburg submitted a petition to the government of the Canton of Aargau in 1836 ; In it he emphasized the importance of the railroad for trade and industry and called for the construction of a railroad from Zurich through the Aargau to Basel. In 1837 the Zurich Chamber of Commerce commissioned the engineer Alois Negrelli to investigate the site. In October of the same year, the Basel-Zurich railway company was founded . The route should lead from Zurich via Dietikon and over the Limmat to Würenlos , then follow the right bank of the Limmat via Wettingen , Ennetbaden and Obersiggenthal . At Untersiggenthal it would have turned north and crossed the Aare at Döttingen . Finally, following the left bank of the Rhine , it would have reached Basel. The surveying began in April 1838, but the rural dwellers, angry about the ruthless actions of the surveyors , hindered the work. The main driving force was fear of material damage. The population feared that the steamy, hissing vehicles that will rush through the countryside would affect their health and well-being. The fears were fueled by the Bavarian Medical Board. This warned "that steam operation would inevitably lead to serious brain diseases among both travelers and spectators" .
The Zurich coup of 1839 and civil war-like disputes over the constitution of the canton of Aargau further delayed the start of construction. The lines along the border were also controversial. One group demanded that the railroad should run over the Bözberg . On December 18, 1839, the Grand Council of Zurich granted permission to build the railway. It was only after endless debates that the approval from Aargau came in November 1840. In the same month the Aargau Great Council passed an expropriation law.
The city of Baden only became interested in the construction of the railway when the route to the left of the Limmat was proposed. This would put the station on Baden soil. According to the local community, it should be built in front of the Mellingertor . In return, the railway company was offered the use of the forest and the municipality's own quarries. On December 5, 1841, a shareholders' meeting of the railway company rejected the city of Baden's proposals. Several shareholders revoked their financial promises, so the Basel-Zurich railway company had to be dissolved. In May 1843, representatives of the cantons of Aargau, Zurich and Basel-Stadt met in Baden's town hall . However, the conference ended with no results. Even a collection of signatures suggested by the Baden city council could not get the project going again.
Railway construction
In May 1845 a new committee was formed under the leadership of the Zurich silk manufacturer Martin Escher . After the dissolution of the former railway company, Escher had auctioned off all documents such as protocols, plans, measurements and calculations. On the basis of these papers, a new variant with slightly modified lines was developed. The track was now in Limmattal entirely left bank run and only at Turgi cross the Limmat. Finally, it was supposed to reach the city of Waldshut via Koblenz , where a connection to the planned Baden main line was planned. A branch line from Baden to Aarau , with a possible extension to Bern , was also planned. Assured that Alois Negrelli would be the executive engineer and the branch line to Aarau would be built, the Aargau Great Council approved the project in July 1845. The negotiations with the Grand Duchy of Baden also went well.
On March 16, 1846, the Swiss Northern Railway Company was founded with share capital of 20 million francs. Construction work on the Zurich area could already begin in April 1846. Unlike on the Aargau side, the land assignments were already completed. Initially, the construction of the Zurich - Baden section was planned as the first stage. At the request of the people of Baden, the station at the Mellingertor was again to be built. Negrelli pushed through the relocation to the north side of the old town, which required the construction of a tunnel through the Schlossberg. Gustav Albert Wegmann was commissioned to plan the Zurich train station . His college friend Ferdinand Stadler was entrusted with the planning for the Baden train station .
The construction work was problem-free for most of the route, only minor problems arose between Neuenhof and Baden. The canton road was busy and should be crossed twice. To avoid this, the road had to be moved uphill for a length of 2,200 feet. The land required from the property of the Wettingen monastery was acquired.
In the Krummbach-Damsau area, the building site was interspersed with unstable Nagelfluh rocks and sandstone banks. These had to be blown up. Water veins emerged above the railway line, which led to slight landslides . Moats were built to drain the water. For reasons of time and money, the building rubble that accumulated in large quantities was simply disposed of by "dumping it into the Limmat". The complaints from spinning mill owners and land managers passed away without any reaction. Only a flood in the summer of 1847 restored normal conditions.
The construction of the Schlossberg tunnel posed particular challenges . Although the tunnel through the Schlossberg is only 80 meters long, the work took around a year. Three workers were killed in a demolition accident, and six more died of typhus . The tunnel was cut on April 14, 1847.
opening
After sixteen months of construction, the first railway line entirely on Swiss soil was officially opened on August 7, 1847. Shortly after 11.30 a.m., the arrival of the first official train was announced by gunfire. He brought the invited guests and members of the Aargau authorities from Baden to Zurich. Locomotive no. 1 «Limmat» needed just 33 minutes for the 23 km long route, which would correspond to an average speed of 42 km / h. After speeches and a tour of the station infrastructure, the parade with the 140 guests started their return journey to Baden at 1 p.m. But now pulled by locomotive No. 2 «Aare».
The timetabled operation began two days later. Four steam locomotives, 31 passenger and 9 freight cars were available. There were four journeys in both directions a day. An additional pair of trains was added on Sundays. The travel time for the 23 km long route was 45 minutes. On the way the trains stopped in Altstetten , Schlieren and Dietikon .
The railway was not very successful economically. Freight traffic did not develop as hoped. The railway line was too short. The time saved was more than offset by the complex reloading. Because of the Sonderbund War and the revolutions of 1848 in neighboring countries, the number of passengers carried decreased rapidly. A person could travel from Zurich to Baden for 80 cents. Despite all the efforts to save money, the modest timetable offer could hardly cover the operating costs. In addition, the northern line canceled one of the daily connections. The construction of the other stages has been postponed indefinitely. The branch line Baden - Lenzburg - Aarau was deleted from the plans. At least the company managed to reach an agreement with the postal administration, so that the stagecoach course to Bern on the Zurich - Baden section no longer ran; the course to Basel continued to serve the entire route. Only after the adoption of the federal Railway Act in 1852 and 1853 were carried out merger with under the direction of Alfred Escher standing Zurich-Bodensee Bahn to Swiss Northeastern Railway (NOB), plans for further construction could be resumed.
Rolling stock
The Northern Railway Company needed four steam locomotives to open operations . These were ordered by Emil Kessler from the mechanical engineering company in Karlsruhe . The first two locomotives were of the type D 1/3 with a tender. These were the first locomotives built for a Swiss railway company . They were based on the American Norris locomotive type . The purchase price for a machine was around 35,000 Swiss francs . Since the drive axle load was too high, the order for the last two locomotives was changed to type D 2/4 with a tender. These machines corresponded to a slightly modified version of the Württemberg III and were delivered to the SNB for 40,000 francs each.
With a view to the 100th anniversary of the Swiss railways, the SBB main workshop in Zurich created a replica of the D 1/3 “Limmat” in 1947 together with SLM in Winterthur . The fully operational replica is owned by SBB Historic . The locomotive is normally on display in the Swiss Museum of Transport (VHS) in Lucerne .
So far, the original train from the early days was generally considered not to have been preserved. When a company was shut down, an old trolley was taken to a scrapyard. Private persons from the environment of the Swiss Society for Railway History (SGEG) unequivocally identified the trolley as the original undercarriage of a passenger car from 1847 of the Swiss Northern Railway (SNB), i.e. the legendary train of the Spanish Brötli Railway . The base is now on display at the Katzensee steam train and can be viewed during the tour.
Spanish bread roll
How the train got its nickname “ Spanish-Brötli-Bahn ” and how widespread it was is not known. The only thing that is clear is that the name refers to the Baden specialty, Spanish bread rolls .
There are various legends about the origin of the name. It is reported that the people of Zurich had this specialty brought fresh from the oven by train from Baden by their servants. This legend is as popular as it is controversial. The fare alone speaks against it, as the trip to Baden in third class cost 80 cents each way for a passenger , which was roughly the daily wage of a servant. However, it is not known whether this prevented the wealthy upper class from enriching their breakfast with this specialty. It would also be possible that the rolls were delivered to Zurich on the early train so that they could be received by the staff while they were still warm.
There are indications of a railway political dispute in the 1870s, between the Zurich upper class with their “Herrenbahn” and the Winterthur democrats with their “Volksbahn”. So it is possible that the people of Winterthur - knowing the bread roll transport - used the name Spanish-Brötli-Bahn as a devaluation or as a mockery.
The fact that the railway was given this nickname very early on is proven by the “Zurich Calendar” from 1897 on the 50th anniversary of the Zurich – Baden railway line. It is reported from the "Spanish brödlibahn, which is often mocked at".
This could also have become popular through the later nationalization of the private railways and their transition to the SBB, as the abbreviation can be used for both names.
At the latest at the celebration of “100 years of Swiss railways” in 1947, the choice of words became known nationwide through the replica of the SNB locomotive No. 1 “Limmat”.
See also
literature
- Otto Mittler : History of the City of Baden, Volume II: From 1650 to the present . Sauerländer , Aarau 1965, pp. 234–245
- Paul Fischer, Otto Businger: Spanish bread roll . Baden-Verlag, Baden AG 1996, ISBN 3-85545-059-5
- The first Swiss Railway 1847–1937. In: The Bern Week in Words and Images , Vol. 27, 1937, pp. 763–764. ( e-periodica )
Web links
- Spanish Brötlibahn ( memento from October 18, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) and a. with images of the first passenger and freight cars, accessed on August 28, 2015
- Spanish Brötli Bahn ( memento from June 26, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) and a. with images of the first passenger and freight cars; accessed on September 2, 2015 (under Link: "Modell-Bahnen / Spur 1")
- Katzensee Steam Railway Current location of the original underframe of a Spanish Brötli Bahn wagon, accessed on September 2, 2015
References and comments
- ↑ Baden station archive . Retrieved August 28, 2015
- ^ Via Storia Foundation for the History of Transport, Swiss Northern Railway . Retrieved August 28, 2015
- ↑ this was only realized in 1875 by the Swiss Northeast Railway
- ↑ Baden station archive . Retrieved August 28, 2015
- ↑ In March 1964 a newly built road collapsed due to a landslide and was closed on one side for a year
- ↑ Baden New Years Papers 2010 . Publishing house for culture and history, Baden 2010, S, 90–93
- ↑ Katzensee steam train . Retrieved August 28, 2015
- ↑ means the Swiss Northeast Railway
- ↑ means the Swiss National Railway
- ↑ From ridicule to brand name . In: NZZ , January 19, 2012; accessed on August 28, 2015