Toggenburgerbahn

Toggenburgerbahn
GTW 2/6 on the Guggenloch Bridge near Lütisburg
Route length:	24.86 km
Gauge :	1435 mm ( standard gauge )
Power system :	15 kV 16.7 Hz  ~
Maximum slope :	15  ‰
Wil – Ebnat-Kappel
Legend SBB from Winterthur Thurbo from Weinfelden FW to Frauenfeld 0.00 Wil starting point S 9 571 m above sea level M. 1.11 Canton border St. Gallen - Thurgau 1.48 SBB to St. Gallen 2.56 Canton border Thurgau-St. Gallen 6.92 Bazenheid 597 m above sea level M. Bazenheid 96 m Guggenloch 152 m 10.15 Luetisburg 599 m above sea level M. 12.93 Butschwil 611 m above sea level M. Dietfurt 60 m 14.62 Dietfurt 611 m above sea level M. SOB from St. Gallen S 4 S 8 UAE 17.51 Lichtensteig wedge station 616 m above sea level M. January 20 Wattwil end point S 9 614 m above sea level M. SBB to Uznach S 4 VAE 24.86 Ebnat-Kappel 630 m above sea level M. SOB to Nesslau-Neu St. Johann S 8

The Toggenburgerbahn ( TB ) was a Swiss railway company . Their 25-kilometer, standard-gauge route from Wil via Wattwil to Ebnat-Kappel was opened on June 24, 1870. The TB was nationalized to the Swiss Federal Railways (SBB) on July 1, 1902 .

history

Design and construction

The old station building in Lichtensteig comes from the construction of Toggenburgerbahn. With the construction of the Bodensee-Toggenburg-Bahn in 1910, Lichtensteig received a wedge station with a new reception building. The old train station is now used as a bistro.

Toggenburgerbahn train in Lichtensteig, lithography

Guggenloch Bridge near Lütisburg. The bridge, completed in 1875, was rebuilt in 1945 as a stone arch bridge.

Steam locomotive E 3/3 number 1 "Hülftegg" of the Toggenburgerbahn

After the opening of the St. Gallen – Winterthur railway line, the call for a railway was also loud in Toggenburg . As early as 1856, a planning commission founded on the initiative of industrialists around Johann Rudolf Raschle commissioned the planning of a railway line from Wil– Ebnat . A variant that would have led from Lütisburg to Uzwil or Flawil was discarded for topographical and financial reasons. At the end of 1858 there was a detailed cost estimate for 6 million francs.

Then you didn't hear from the train for a long time. In 1864, the Bern construction company Wieland, Gubser & Cie. surprising interest in the project. The railway committee made all documents available to the company. The canton of St. Gallen took over shares for 2.5 million francs , 1.5 million subscribed to municipalities and private individuals. In 1868 the construction company undertook to build the railway together with all the buildings for 3 million francs within two years. The three locomotives E 3/3 were at the company Co. Krauss & related. The ceremonial opening of the TB took place on June 23, 1870. They were particularly proud of the 54.5 meter high Guggenloch Bridge near Lütisburg.

business

The United Swiss Railways (VSB) operated the TB until it was nationalized . Initially there were four trains a day, later five trains between Wil and Ebnat. The income from passenger and freight traffic was roughly equal. TB was a fairly solid company financially and was able to pay dividends practically every year .

nationalization

In the run-up to the nationalization , projects were already in progress in the canton of St. Gallen that provided for a connection between the canton's capital and the Sanktgaller Linth area . The “ St. Gallen – Zug Railway Committee ” chose a route through Toggenburg that would later enable direct access to the Gotthard Railway . The committee received a concession for this as early as 1890, but it was unable to raise the financing of the planned Rickentunnel . The canton of St. Gallen acquired the TB in 1901 for 2.75 million francs and ceded it to the VSB without compensation. With the nationalization of the VSB in 1902, the TB became federal property and was integrated into the SBB. This virtually free cession of the TB to the federal government was the financial contribution of the canton of St. Gallen to the construction of the 12 million Swiss francs Rickentunnel.

Rickenbahn

The Rickenbahn from Wattwil to Uznach with a connection to the existing railway line to Rapperswil was opened on October 1, 1910. The direct connection from Wattwil to St. Gallen was opened two days later by the Bodensee-Toggenburg-Bahn (BT), whereby the SBB was initially responsible for operational management.

Even then, the former TB and BT had several points of contact, so the Lichtensteig and Wattwil stations were also used by BT. There was also a false double track between the two stations, as the single track lines of the SBB and the BT were laid directly next to each other.

Functionally, the Toggenburgerbahn was extended on October 1, 1912 by the BT route from Ebnat-Kappel to Nesslau-Neu St. Johann , which also made Ebnat-Kappel a shared station.

Electrification

After the heavy carbon monoxide - accident in Ricken tunnel on October 4, 1926, the tunnel of the SBB with AC (15 kV 16⅔ Hz, today 16.7 Hz) electrified and the steam operation in tunnel as of May 15, 1927 prohibited. BT came under the pressure to electrify its line as well in order to restore continuous operation. Since the electrification of the Toggenburgerbahn had no priority at the SBB, but the BT wanted to switch to electrical operation immediately, the latter was forced to lease the Wattwil – Ebnat section from the SBB in order to have a continuous contact line to its Ebnat- Kappel-Nesslau-Neu St. Johann.

The electrical operation St. Gallen-Wattwil-Nesslau-Neu St. Johann was started on October 4, 1931, which also made continuous trains through the Rickentunnel possible again. With the permanent leasing of the Wattwil – Ebnat-Kappel section to BT, the SBB withdrew from the operation of the Ebnat-Kappel station.

On the remaining 20 kilometers of the Toggenburgerbahn between Wil and Wattwil, the steam traction lasted for twelve years before electrical operation began there on December 12, 1943. This also meant that the curiosity that only the BT track was electrified between Wattwil and Lichtensteig disappeared, while that of the SBB was not. In connection with the electrification, the Bazenheid and Dietfurt bridges were rebuilt in 1943. The new Guggenloch Bridge was not put into operation until 1945.

Cleaning up the property boundaries

When the BT opened in 1910 and the SBB started operating the Ricken line to Uznach, a larger reception building became necessary in Wattwil . In 2005, Wattwil station became the property of the SOB .

Wedge station Lichtensteig, on the left the SOB track with a RABe 526 , in the middle the post bus going to Krinau . The track of the Toggenburgerbahn runs behind the station building.

On the Wattwil – Lichtensteig section, following infrastructure adjustments in 1977/1978, limited double-lane operation became possible. With the merger of BT and Schweizerische Südostbahn (SOB) on January 1, 2001 - while retaining the latter name - the SOB became a contractual partner of SBB. The use of the track systems, which has been contractually regulated since the opening of the BT, was replaced by the so-called free network access with the rail reform 1 .

In the course of 2005, the SBB and SOB finally agreed on an adjustment of the ownership structure: the SBB withdrew from the operation of the Lichtensteig and Wattwil stations and handed over the previous Wattwil – Ebnat leased line to the SOB, as well as the second track between Lichtensteig and Wattwil , in exchange for the shares of the SOB at the St. Gallen train station . With the change in the course of 2006, SBB only owns the Wil – Lichtensteig section of the former Toggenburgerbahn.

Operational

GTW trains from Thurbo are used on the Wil – Wattwil route .

Since the electrification up to the 2013 timetable year, operation on the Wil – Nesslau-Neu St. Johann route was continuous. Rolling stock from SBB and BT was used. In the 1970s, the SBB examined the closure of operations.

Since 2009 the line has been part of the St. Gallen S-Bahn as the S 9 . To this end, the platforms in the Bazenheid , Bütschwil and Dietfurt stations were raised and lengthened. In Bütschwil, where the half-hourly trains cross , an outside platform with a pedestrian underpass was built. Bazenheid was given a covered bus stop. The new electronic signal boxes were initially remote-controlled from St. Gallen.

Since the 2013 timetable change, Thurbo trains on the Wil – Wattwil section have been commuting every half hour as the S 9 . Individual trains are connected with the S 10 to Weinfelden , but this is not visible in the timetable or on the train route signs . From Nesslau-Neu St. Johann the Thurbo trains run as the S 8 via St. Gallen – Kreuzlingen to Schaffhausen .

The route from Wil to Nesslau-Neu St. Johann is in the Swiss timetable as schedule field 853 performed.

literature

• Hans G. Wägli: Swiss rail network and Swiss rail profile CH + . AS Verlag, Zurich 2010, ISBN 978-3-909111-74-9 .
• Anton Heer: The Toggenburg and its railways: ideas, plans and construction work between the pioneering days and NEAT . Toggenburger Vereinigung für Heimatkunde, Wattwil 1995, ISBN 3-9520701-0-6 .
• Hans Amann: With steam to Toggenburg - 120 years of the Toggenburg Railway . In: Toggenburg Annals . E. Kalberer, Bazenheid 1990.
• Toggenburgerbahn. In: Via Storia, Center for Transport History. University of Bern, accessed on January 30, 2014 . 
• Bazenheid, Lütisburg, Bütschwil and Dietfurt: SBB modernized train stations in Toggenburg. Sandro Hartmeier - Bahnonline.ch, October 26, 2009, accessed on October 15, 2018 . 
• Albert Büchi: A story told dead in new splendor. Tagblatt Online, October 28, 2009, accessed January 30, 2014 . 

Remarks

1. ↑ In contrast to the machine shown in the picture, the TB locomotives were three-axle.