Wetzikon-Meilen-Bahn

Kempten Ochsen – Meilen ship station
Car of the Wetzikon-Meilen-Bahn in Kempten
WMB situation map. Map background from 2019
Route length:	22.5 km
Gauge :	1000 mm ( meter gauge )
Power system :	750 volts  =
Maximum slope :	65  ‰
Minimum radius :	25 m
Legend −2.4 Kempten ox 566  m above sea level M. Kempten SBB Oberwetzikon 0.0 Wetzikon SBB 532  m above sea level M. 2.1 Grüt 547  m above sea level M. 2.4 Prampel 531  m above sea level M. 4.0 Gossau 500  m above sea level M. 5.2 Ottikon (Gossau ZH) 504  m above sea level M. 5.6 Unterottikon 494  m above sea level M. Grüningen Itzikon Grüningen town 8.3 Grüningen 465  m above sea level M. Grüningen Binzikon Grüningen Holzhausen 11.1 Oetwil am See Willikon 558  m above sea level M. Uster-Oetwil-Bahn from Uster 11.6 Long wood 581  m above sea level M. 12.3 Stäfa Mühlehölzli 602  m above sea level M. 15.1 Männedorf on village 491  m above sea level M. Männedorf Allmend Männedorf Büelen Uetikon Kleindorf 16.9 Uetikon Grossdorf 458  m above sea level M. Dollikon 18.7 Upper miles 414  m above sea level M. 19.6 Miles SBB 420  m above sea level M. 20.1 Miles boat station 411  m above sea level M.

Wetzikon on October 1, 1903 on the occasion of the inauguration of the railway

The Wetzikon-Meilen-Bahn (WMB), also popularly known as the Bünzlitrucke , was a Swiss overland tram that operated in the Zurich Oberland from 1903 to 1950. The railway company had the same name.

History of origin

Share for 500 francs in the Electric Tramway Wetzikon-Meilen AG on April 19, 1904

The first project for a rail link to Lake Zurich was drafted as early as 1872 . It was not until 1889, one formed Committee for a narrow-gauge tram Wetzikon - Stäfa that the on 29 June 1893 the concession was awarded. There were also projects and concessions for a Uerikon-Bauma railway , a Uster - Egg railway and an Effretikon – Uster – Stäfa line.

A commission from the cantonal government of Zurich proposed a merger of the projects and the realization of a standard gauge railway from Effretikon via Uster - Gossau - Grüningen to Hombrechtikon . Wetzikon, which was afraid of being bypassed by this railway to the west and by the Uerikon-Bauma railway to the east, resisted and proposed the construction of a narrow-gauge railway from Wetzikon to Meilen . The railway company was founded on April 24, 1900, and when the financing was secured, construction work on the line began in the summer of 1902 and was officially opened on October 1, 1903.

Railway line and operation

A WMB train in front of the Zum Bären inn in Grüningen

The entire route of the WMB, which was electrified with 750 volts direct current and was colloquially called Wurst-Mit-Brot -Bahn, was 22.5 kilometers and led from Kempten via Wetzikon SBB – Gossau – Grüningen– Oetwil – Langholz– Männedorf Auf Dorf– Uetikon Grossdorf –Meilen SBB to the ship landing in miles. In Wetzikon and Meilen the railway was connected to the Swiss Federal Railways and in Langholz to the Uster-Oetwil Railway . Frequencies and freight traffic developed very well and a short time after the opening, another two-axle motor car and two freight cars had to be purchased. The railway thus had a vehicle fleet of three four-axle and five two-axle passenger railcars, two two-axle freight motor cars, three passenger cars, nine freight cars and three company cars. The record was set in 1920 with 532,345 travelers and 11,014 tons of goods.

23 years after the start of operations, the disputes about the common use of the Langholz station were settled by a contract .

Route shortening

At the beginning of 1931, the building management of the canton of Zurich requested the demolition of the short section from Meilen SBB down to the ship station, and after careful consideration the board of directors approved this route shortening. From October 3, 1931, the WMB only operated as far as Meilen train station , and the tracks to the ship station were broken off.

On the other side of the route, the municipality of Wetzikon also asked for the tram to Kempten to be demolished, as it stood in the way of road widening. Experts, however, refused to operate a car or trolleybus on this section.

When the roads along the railway were asphalted from 1935 onwards, it was hoped that there would be more passengers because of the lower dust. This turned out to be a fallacy because more people were using their bikes. On the occasion of the general assembly on May 14, 1938, a switch to bus operation was discussed again. The motion of the board of directors to introduce a bus service between Kempten and Wetzikon SBB was granted. On May 15, 1939, bus service between Kempten and Wetzikon began and the railway line was broken off.

Downfall

Former Ottikon train station in autumn 2009

Despite the high frequencies during the Second World War, the end of the railway was looming, as maintenance was saved and only the bare essentials were repaired. The narrow road conditions in the villages, especially in Grüningen, and the many accidents with cars also indicated an urgent need for action.

Since the Wetzikon-Meilen-Bahn - as well as the Uster-Oetwil-Bahn and the Uerikon-Bauma-Bahn - were technically out of date, a commission suggested replacing these lines with a bus service. An action committee for the maintenance of the railways in the Zurich Oberland was formed immediately . On March 18, 1946, the Cantonal Council approved his contribution to the conversion of the three railways into bus routes, and after a fierce vote, the people of Zurich approved this reorganization on May 26, 1946 with a ratio of 3: 2. In the same year the company Verkehrsbetriebe Zürcher Oberland (VZO) was founded. On May 13, 1950, the last hour struck for the Wetzikon-Meilen-Bahn: it was shut down, demolished and replaced by buses from the Zürcher Oberland public transport company.

Old route with viaduct on the Panoramaweg above Männedorf / Stäfa

vehicles

Railcar

• CFe 4/4 1 (1903) SIG / MFO, canceled
• CFe 4/4 2 (1903) SIG / MFO, sold to Iserlohner Kreisbahn , later demolished, today on the area of ​​the Zurich Lake and Oberland transport companies in Grüningen (identically constructed, as CFe 4/4 2 motor vehicle of the Trogenerbahn )
• CFe 4/4 3 (1903) SIG / MFO, sold to Iserlohner Kreisbahn, later canceled
• Ce 2/2 11 (1903) SIG / MFO, sold to Dürener Eisenbahn (DEAG) in 1950 , later canceled
• Ce 2/2 12 (1903) SIG / MFO, canceled in 1950
• Ce 2/2 13 (1903) SIG / MFO, canceled in 1950
• Ce 2/2 14 (1903) SIG / MFO, sold to Düren Railway in 1950, later canceled
• Ce 2/2 15 (1909) SWS / MFO, canceled in 1950
• Fe 2/2 31 (1903) SIG / MFO, canceled in 1950
• Fe 2/2 32 (1903) SIG / MFO, canceled in 1950

Passenger cars

• C 21 (1903) SIG, canceled in 1950
• C 22 (1903) SIG, canceled in 1950
• C 23 (1903) SIG, canceled in 1950

Freight wagons

• K 41 (1903) SIG, canceled in 1950
• K 42 (1903) SIG, canceled in 1950
• K 43 (1903) SIG, canceled in 1950
• K 44 (1908) SWS, sold to Forchbahn (FB) in 1950 , there K 25
• K 45 (1920) SIG, sold to Sernftalbahn (SeTB) in 1950 , there K 36
• L 51 (1903) SIG, sold to Trogenerbahn (TB) in 1950 , there L 53
• L 52 (1903) SIG, sold to Langenthal-Melchnau-Bahn (LMB) in 1950 , there L 45
• L 53 (1903) SIG, sold in 1950 to Langenthal-Jura-Bahn (LJB), there L 43
• L 54 (1908) SWS, sold to Forchbahn (FB) in 1950, there L 34 "
• S 61 (1903) SIG, canceled in 1950
• S 62 (1903) SIG, canceled in 1950

There was also an X 71 catenary assembly car, which was also demolished in 1950.

remains

Today you can only see remnants of the route in a few places, especially in places where the railway did not run directly on a street:

• Serpentines at «Uf Dorf» in Männedorf,
• Railway viaduct on the Panoramaweg above Männedorf,
• Railway embankment between Holzhusen and Grüningen.

There is still a “tramway” in Uetikon.

The historic CFe 4/4 2 motor vehicle has been installed in Grüningen since 1992 , consisting of an identical Trogenerbahn motor vehicle (no. 23, ex 1), the CFe 4/4 1–5 series in 1986 and 1987 by the Tram Association -Museum Zürich (TMZ) has been externally prepared.

literature

• Werner Neuhaus: From the annals of the Wetzikon-Meilen-Bahn , Th. Gut + Co. Verlag, Stäfa 1978
• Felix Sutter, Sandro Sigrist: Electric tram Wetzikon-Meilen , Prellbock Druck & Verlag, Leissigen 1997, ISBN 3-907579-03-8

Web links

Commons : Wetzikon – Meilen-Bahn  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Website of the Zurich Lake and Oberland Transport Authority, formerly the Zurich Oberland Transport Authority (VZO)
• Website discontinued railways of Switzerland / Wetzikon-Meilen-Bahn (WMB)
• Video: Wetzikon-Meilen-Bahn 1950
• Swisstopo, time travel through maps from 1854 to today with the route of the railway
• Route on openstreetmap.org

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Tram history. Wetzikon city administration, accessed on October 13, 2019 . 
2. ↑ Book by Hans Waldburger That was the Sernftalbahn , page 136
3. ↑ www.pospichal.net, Sernftalbahn, freight and company cars