Trolleybus Val de Ruz

Trolleybus Val de Ruz
Route length:	14.4 km
Power system :	600 volts  =
Legend Transition to the Neuchâtel Jura Railway Les Hauts-Geneveys CFF 954 m Fontainemelon 867 m Trolleybus Neuchâtel Valangine Boudevilliers Fontaines Cernier 822 m Cernier Depot 820 m Petit-Chézard 769 m Saint Martin 749 m Dombresson 744 m Villiers 764 m

The trolleybus Val de Ruz was a trolley bus - cross-country driving in the Swiss canton of Neuchatel , the first the tram Les Hauts-Geneveys-Villiers replaced and then to the adjacent trolley Neuchâtel (an operating part of TN ) has been linked. The network in the Val de Ruz valley and in the Val-de-Ruz district existed from 1948 to 1984; it belonged to the Compagnie des Transports du Val-de-Ruz , abbreviated VR , until December 20, 1947 Compagnie du Chemin de fer Régional du Val-de-Ruz et Compagnie des Autotransports du Val-de-Ruz . This merged into the company TRN SA in 1999 , which merged with the TN to form Transports Publics Neuchâtelois in 2012 and is the concession holder for the bus routes in Val de Ruz to the present day.

history

Trolleybus 34 in Dombresson , September 1983

The first line to go into operation on September 1, 1948, was the 8.3 kilometer connection from the SBB train station Les Hauts-Geneveys on the Neuchâtel – La Chaux-de-Fonds line via Fontainemelon , Cernier , Chézard-Saint-Martin and Dombresson to Villiers . It replaced the tramway that opened in 1903 and ran on the same route and was run by the same company. In the last operating phase, the tram cars were equipped with pantographs and used one contact wire from the trolleybus contact line that had already been completed.

On July 1, 1949, the side route from Neuchâtel to the valley capital of Cernier added a direct connection to the trolleybus in Neuchâtel that had existed since 1940 . It replaced a stretch of the Neuchâtel tram that opened in 1901 between Neuchâtel and Valangin , this section continued to belong to the TN . The 6.1-kilometer gap closure from Valangin via Boudevilliers and Fontaines to Cernier, which was previously not served by trams, was built and operated by VR. Valangin was the only place in Switzerland where two trolleybus networks from different concessionaires touched. The continuous joint line 4 Neuchâtel, Place Pury – Cernier was the only trolleybus line in Switzerland on which vehicles from two different companies penetrated into the network of the other company.

The Valangin – Cernier section, together with the Neuchâtel – Valangin TN line, was converted to bus service on November 3, 1969 . Before that, VR ran its courses on this route for a few months in trolleybus replacement traffic, while the TN courses were equipped with trolleybuses until the end. On April 14, 1984, VR finally ceased electrical operation on the main line from Les Hauts-Geneveys to Villiers.

Infrastructure

With the exception of the Cernier – Fontainemelon section, the trunk line initially only had a single-lane contact line , whereas Cernier – Valangin was double-lane from the start. A second contact line was put into operation in 1951 in the Cernier – Saint-Martin section, followed by the Fontainemelon – Les Hauts-Geneveys section in 1957. The end piece Saint-Martin-Villiers, however, remained a single lane. Reversible loops existed in Hauts-Geneveys, Cernier and Villiers, and from 1957 also in Fontainemelon. The turning loop in Cernier was designed so that it could be driven from and in all directions. It thus enabled continuous journeys from Hauts-Geneveys to Neuchâtel and from Villiers to the depot. In Fontaines (1951–1959) and Fontainemelon (1951–1957) there were temporary turning triangles , but these were rebuilt or abandoned for safety reasons.

The four-person depot in Cernier was connected via a double-lane branch line, which only allowed direct journeys in the direction of Cernier. The catenary of the branch line was designed as a loop in front of the depot, with three of the four stands being connected with the loop. The trolleybus depot is the tram depot from 1903, which had been adapted to the new requirements.

vehicles

When the company opened in 1948, the VR acquired five solo trolleybuses with the company numbers 1-5 from Caproni , and Tecnomasio Italiano Brown Boveri supplied the electrical equipment . These cars were canceled between 1969 and 1975.

In 1951, cars 51 and 52 from the year of construction 1939 were taken over from the Zurich trolleybus and put into operation with the new numbers 11 and 12. They had a Saurer chassis and electrical equipment from Maschinenfabrik Oerlikon . The body of the first car was also from Saurer, the second from Tüscher . They were retired in 1970 and 1981 respectively.

In the years 1968 to 1971, the trolleybus in Bern took over car 17 (Saurer, Ramseier & Jenzer, Maschinenfabrik Oerlikon - built in 1942) and trolleybus 807, 808 and 810 (Saurer, CGTE / Haag, SAAS - built in 1942) from the Geneva trolleybus and put into operation under the new numbers 31 to 34. Car 33 was scrapped in 1982, the remaining three drove until it ceased operations in 1984.

Finally, in 1979 car number 5 ( Berna , Haag, Maschinenfabrik Oerlikon - built in 1950) was taken over from the La Chaux-de-Fonds trolleybus , but was discarded again in 1983.

Timetable

Winter timetable 1957/58

The timetables of the overland trolleybus lines were published in the official timetable of Switzerland under the railways up to the winter timetable 1981/82 , and from the summer timetable 1982 on the buses. The timetable field numbers for the main route were 32f, later 33 and from 1982 223.10, for the connection with Neuchâtel 32g. In the timetables, only the towns were listed according to the route diagram shown here, not the other intermediate stops.

From Hauts-Geneveys there were 28 courses in the 1950s, four of them only on weekdays. In the Cernier – Villiers section, there were a total of three more courses. The shop closed shortly after midnight. In the 1980s, fewer courses were offered, in the Cernier – Villiers section partly by bus. The late courses only ran on Fridays and Saturdays.

On the Neuchâtel – Cernier line, 17 courses ran in the 1950s, the first only on working days and the second only on working days in winter. On the other hand, a trolleybus drove to Cernier and back at midnight on Saturday night. In the urban section of the line from Place Pury (incorrectly written with two rs in the adjacent timetable excerpt) to Valangin, up to eight additional courses were offered, depending on the day of the week and the time of year.

literature

• Jean-Philippe Coppex, Die Schweizer Überlandtrolleybusse , (bilingual: French and German), Verlag Endstation Ostring, Geneva 2008, ISBN 978-3-9522545-3-0
• Sébastien Jacobi: La Chaux-de-Fonds et Bienne en Tram. Self-published by Sébastien Jacobi, Neuchâtel 1977
• Sébastien Jacobi: Neuchâtel en Tram 1890–1990. Self-published by Sébastien Jacobi, Neuchâtel 1989
• Dieter Schopfer: Directory of the trolleybuses in Switzerland 1911-1997. VRS, Winterthur 1998

Web links

• Picture gallery on polier.ch

Individual evidence

1. ↑ History of the Compagnie du Tramway du Val-de-Ruz on www.transn.ch ( Memento of the original from February 21, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) 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. 
2. ↑ Jean-Philippe Coppex, Swiss interurban trolley buses (bilingual: French and German), published last stop Ostring, Geneva 2008, ISBN 978-3-9522545-3-0 , page 37
3. ^ Sébastien Jacobi: La Chaux-de-Fonds et Bienne en Tram. Self-published by Sébastien Jacobi, Neuchâtel 1977, page 48
4. ↑ ^{a b} Decommissioning data for Swiss tram and trolleybus companies on sufk-koeln.de
5. ^ Sébastien Jacobi: Neuchâtel en Tram 1890–1990. Self-published by Sébastien Jacobi, Neuchâtel 1989, page 109
6. ↑ Association Neuchâteloise des Amis du Tramway, Ligne 4 Neuchâtel – Valangin ( Memento of the original of March 12, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
7. ^ Peter Kamm: The rolling stock of the public transport company of the City of Zurich 1896–1985. Bulletin 12, Tram-Museum Zurich Association 1985, pages 136 and 137
8. ↑ After 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 , there were at least the Ecluse, St-Nicolas and Gorges stops that were not listed in the timetable.
9. ↑ Claude Jeanmaire, Yves Merminod: Les Tramways de Neuchâtel II - 100 Ans de transports publics à Neuchâtel, Volume 2: Les lignes du tramway, les dépôts, les autobus et trolleybus à Neuchâtel. Archive No. 60, Verlag Eisenbahn, Villigen AG 1992, ISBN 3-85649-060-4 , reproduction of the 1954/55 timetable on the inside cover.