Les Hauts-Geneveys – Villiers tram

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Les Hauts-Geneveys-Villiers
Route length: 8.28 km
Gauge : 1000 mm ( meter gauge )
Power system : 650 volts  =
Legend
   
 Transition to the Neuchâtel Jura Railway
   
 0.00 Les Hauts-Geneveys 954 m
   
 1.60 Fontainemelon 867 m
   
 2.50 Cernier 822 m
   
 2.90 Cernier Depot 820 m
   
 3.80 Grand Chézard 774 m
   
 4.10 Petit Chézard 769 m
   
 5.00 Saint Martin 749 m
   
 7.10 Dombresson 744 m
   
 8.28 Villiers 764 m

The Les Hauts-Geneveys – Villiers tram was a meter-gauge overland tram in the Swiss canton of Neuchâtel . The 8.28 km long connection in Val de Ruz existed from February 23, 1903 to August 31, 1948 and was then replaced by the Val de Ruz trolleybus . The transport company was the Compagnie du Chemin de fer Régional du Val-de-Ruz et Compagnie des Autotransports du Val-de-Ruz , or VR for short , which became the Compagnie des Transports du Val-de-Ruz on December 20, 1947 . This in turn went into the company TRN SA in 1999 , which serves the former tram route with buses to the present day .

route

The tram ran from the Les Hauts-Geneveys SBB train station on the Neuchâtel Jura Railway via Fontainemelon , Cernier , Chézard-Saint-Martin and Dombresson to Villiers . The continuous single-track route followed along the entire length of the road, there were no engineering structures. The depot was in the valley capital, Cernier.

vehicles

There were five railcars Ce 2/2 1–5 and two different sized freight railcars K e , later Fe 2/2 1 and 2 available. The motor vehicles were all manufactured by SWS and the Oerlikon machine factory . There was also an FZ 1 mail wagon that was just 2.90 meters long. In 1904, an L 10 gondola was purchased, and a year later a private car from the Perrenoud company in Cernier was added. This was replaced in 1918 by a self-built M 11 open car. In 1913 two single-axle trailers M 20-21 were put into operation for transporting sleds.

In 1941, TN took over their motor car 52 and put it into operation as number 6; TN 51 followed two years later as number 7. At the same time, car 1 was demolished and number 5 was revised by TN and equipped with more powerful engines from Zurich tram cars. This meant that three railcars with 80 instead of 60 hp were available. The motor vehicles were transferred via Valangin, where they were loaded onto a roller stool. Also in 1943 the FZ 1 was replaced by the identical FZ 3003 of the TN, which kept its number. All vehicles, with the exception of the mail cart, were broken off after operations had ceased. The FZ 3003 reached the Langenthal – Jura Railway as the F 71, where it was discarded in 1951 and broken off in 1956.

Until 1930, the motor vehicles drove with pantographs (roller pantographs), then with Lyra bars. Shortly before the shutdown of operations, there was a change back to pantographs (type trolleybus) so that the already completed trolleybus contact line could be used and the tram contact line canceled.

literature

  • Sébastien Jacobi: La Chaux-de-Fonds et Bienne en Tram. Self-published by Sébastien Jacobi, Neuchâtel 1977

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ The company's 1947 annual report, page 26; the overall length is specified as 8772 m.
  2. ↑ Annual report 1947 of the company, page 3 File: VR-rapport1947.PDF
  3. ↑ Claude Jeanmaire, Yves Merminod: Les Tramways de Neuchâtel - 100 Ans de transports publics à Neuchâtel, Volume 1: Les Funiculaires et les Tramways. Archive No. 54, Verlag Eisenbahn, Villigen AG 1991, ISBN 3-85649-054-X , photos 264–267
  4. ↑ Railway amateur 10/80 (Lexicon pages OJB / SNB)
  5. ↑ Hans Waldburger, The cessation of operations in the spring of 1984, in: Schweizer Eisenbahn-Revue 4/84, legend on page 129
  6. ↑ On the photo by K. Stebler from August 5, 1948 in Eisenbahn-Amateur 11/81 (encyclopedia pages Postwagen der Schweiz) it can be clearly seen that there is a four-digit number on the front side and not the number 1 as can be read in the legend
  7. ^ René Stamm, Claude Jeanmaire: Oberaargauer Schmalspurbahnen. Archive No. 23, Verlag Eisenbahn, Villigen AG 1975, ISBN 3-85649-023-X , page 32