Winterthur tram

Winterthur tram
Route length:	11,140 km
Gauge :	1000 mm ( meter gauge )
Power system :	550 volts  =
Maximum slope :	44  ‰
Minimum radius :	15 m
Legend Oberwinterthur station 1 Wülflingen Lindenplatz 2 Stadtrain Stadtrain Bridge Winterthur train station Sulzer Deutweg Depot Deutweg (from 1914) Töss 1 Rieter depot (until 1914) Seen School House 2

The Winterthur tram was a meter-gauge tram in the Swiss city ​​of Winterthur and its neighboring towns of Töss , Wülflingen , Oberwinterthur and Seen, which were incorporated in 1922 . It existed from 1898 to 1951 and was gradually replaced from 1938 by the Winterthur trolleybus, which still operates today . The responsible transport company was initially the company Winterthur – Töss (WT), which was renamed in 1900 as Städtische Strassenbahn Winterthur ( StStW ) and in 1940 as Verkehrsbetriebe Winterthur ( VW ). Today the company operates as Stadtbus Winterthur .

history

Construction of the Winterthur-Töss tram line

After horse busses were already running in Winterthur between 1895 and 1897 , the tram, which opened on July 13, 1898, was the city's second means of public transport. The first route was 1.770 kilometers long and ran as a radial line from Winterthur train station to Töss. The city-side terminus was originally not on the Bahnhofplatz , but at the Wartmann restaurant - that is, at the confluence of Wartstrasse with Rudolfstrasse and thus on the west side of the railway system. The tram served as a supplement to the Winterthur – Koblenz railway line, which had existed since 1876 , on which the municipality already had a station with the Töss train station. The end of the line out of town was at what is today the trolleybus stop at Zentrum Töss . A single trip cost ten cents , the tram ran every ten minutes.

Initially, the tram vehicles were stored in a wooden depot on the premises of the Rieter machine factory located in Töss . For this purpose, there was a 274 meter long operating line in Töss following the section served by passenger traffic . As a general contractor, Rieter also produced the track system, the overhead contact line and the first generation of wagons on behalf of the city. In addition, the company was initially also responsible for the power supply of the tram, which was electrified from the start, and it was not until 1904 that the Winterthur municipal electricity company took over this task. The DC voltage was 550 volts. After the turn of the century, the route network was expanded as follows:

November 1, 1912	Zürcherstrasse / Rudolfstrasse – Bahnhofplatz a	0.116 kilometers	line 1
October 31, 1914	Bahnhofplatz – Deutweg	1.894 kilometers	Operational route, from January 28, 1915 line 2
	Deutweg depot Deutweg b	0.069 kilometers	Operational route, from November 30, 1922 line 2
January 28, 1915	Bahnhofplatz – Stadtrainbrücke	1.054 kilometers	line 1
	Bahnhofplatz – Wülflingen Lindenplatz	2.973 kilometers	Line 2
November 30, 1922	Depot Deutweg – Seen school building	1,867 kilometers	Line 2
March 22, 1926	Stadtrainbrücke – Stadtrain	about 0.3 kilometers	line 1
December 18, 1931	Stadtrain– Oberwinterthur station	1.056 kilometers	line 1

• ^a with simultaneous closure of the approximately 200 meter long section in Rudolfstrasse
• ^b with simultaneous shutdown of the operating line in Töss

On October 31, 1914, the StStW also opened its own tram depot on Tösstalstrasse in what is now the Mattenbach district . This Deutweg depot was used to hold buses until 2015 . With the last extension to Oberwinterthur, the tram network reached its maximum extension of 11.140 kilometers, of which 1.154 kilometers were double-lane . The further expansion of the route - for example a planned extension to the Rosenberg cemetery  - was not carried out in favor of the bus service that began in 1931 or the switch to trolleybuses, which was accelerated from 1938 . As a result of a referendum on February 20, 1938, the tram gave way to the new means of transport as follows:

December 28, 1938	Bahnhof – Wülflingen Lindenplatz	Line 2
July 24, 1941	Bahnhof – Seen Schoolhouse	Line 2
October 6, 1951	Station – Töss	line 1
November 3, 1951	Oberwinterthur train station	line 1

However, part of the route on line 2 served the moving out and inbound cars on line 1 as an operating route to and from the Deutweg depot until the end.

vehicles

Tram Winterthur – Töss, tram with staff in front of the Remise on the Rieter area

Over the years, 24 motor vehicles and eleven sidecars have been procured for the Winterthur tram :

Construction year	Art	Type	number	Numbers	Remarks
1898	Motor vehicle	Ce 2/2	04th	1-4	Converted to a sidecar in 1921, new numbers 61 to 64
1898	sidecar	C2	01	5	from 1921 new number 65
1914	Motor vehicle	Ce 2/2	10	11-20
1919	Motor vehicle	Ce 2/2	02	21-22
1919	sidecar	C 2	07th	51-57
1921	Motor vehicle	Ce 2/2	03	31-33	1942 to the tram Lucerne sold
1929	sidecar	C 2	02	71-72
1931	Motor vehicle	Ce 2/3	05	1-5
1931	sidecar	C 3	01	81

The passenger vehicles were supplemented by the Xe 2/2 111 work car and two open freight cars .

literature

• Peter Grob: Tram in Winterthur [illustrated book]. Tram Museum Zurich Association, Zurich 1980, (= newsletter , volume 11).
• Hans-Peter Bärtschi: Tram and trolley in Winterthur . Buffer stop, Krattigen 2013.
• When the rumbling and noise came to an end - the Winterthur tram operation ended 50 years ago . In: NZZ , October 18, 2001.
• Feasibility study: Tramstadt Winterthur as a vision . In: NZZ , December 20, 2013.

Web links

Commons : Trams in Winterthur  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• The Winterthur tram on strassenbahn-europa.at; Retrieved March 22, 2012

Individual evidence

1. ↑ The Winterthur tram at polier.ch
2. ↑ Interest group bus depot Deutweg
3. ↑ leaflet chronicle of Winterthur Public Transportation (PDF, 3.2 MB)
4. ↑ The Winterthur tram on bahndaten.ch