Wynental- and Suhrentalbahn

Wynental and Suhrental railway
Modernized ABe 4/8 double multiple unit
Timetable field :	643/644
Route length:	32.2 km
Gauge :	1000 mm ( meter gauge )
Power system :	750 V  =
Maximum slope :	Aarau – Schöftland: 45 ‰ Aarau – Menziken:   35  ‰
Minimum radius :	27 m
Legend Aarau town hall square Aarau Bahnhofplatz Aarau SBB Aarau WSB 0.0 Aarau WSB tunnel (260 m) Binzenhof 1.0 Aarau Gais Thistle mountain 1.8 Aarau Torfeld Unterentfelden Post 2.7 1.6 Buchs AG Unterentfelden Oberdorf 3.2 2.1 Steinfeld Oberentfelden Uerkenbrücke 3.8 2.8 Suhr Schweizerhof Oberentfelden Engelplatz 4.3 3.4 Suhr evasion Oberentfelden 4.2 Suhr Oberentfelden freight track 4.5 Oberentfelden South 5.1 Motorway A1 (65 m) 4.8 Gränichen Töndler Muhen north 5.8 5.4 Graenichen 6.2 Graenichen Oberdorf Low 6.4 Mean mooing 7.0 7.7 Bleien Liebegg Obermühlen 7.4 9.4 Teufenthal 11.1 Unterkulm north Hirschthal 8.5 11.5 Unterulm Schöftland north way 9.6 12.4 Oberkulm Post Schöftland 10.2 12.7 Oberkulm 13.0 Oberkulm 14.6 Schorenbrücke 15.7 Gontenschwil 16.5 Zetzwil 18.0 Leimbach AG Alu Menziken Reinach WSB 20.1 20.1 Reinach AG North old route until 2003 from Beinwil am See 20.3 Reinach AG center Reinach Central 20.6 20.9 Reinach AG Reinach Lindenplatz 20.9 Menziken Castle 22.0 22.0 Menziken to Beromünster Swell:

The Wynental and Suhrental Railway (WSB) was a narrow-gauge private railway in the canton of Aargau in Switzerland . It appeared from 2002 to 2018 together with the Aarau bus company under the brand name AAR bus + bahn , which operated public transport in the Aarau region and in the valleys of the Wyna and Suhre rivers . On June 19, 2018, WSB merged with BDWM Transport to form Aargau Verkehr (AVA). WSB, however, will be retained as the product name .

The WSB consists of two routes from Aarau to Menziken in Wynental and to Schöftland in Suhrental. The route network is 32.2 kilometers long. A total of 17 communities will be developed. Around 5.1 million passengers are transported annually (as of the end of 2009). The trains run every quarter of an hour on weekdays and Saturdays until 8 p.m., otherwise every half hour. Since December 2012, no more goods have been transported on the WSB network.

Railway lines

Both railway lines begin in Aarau on the south side of the SBB train station . The WSB has its own station building here with a covered platform. Two underpasses serve as a connection to the SBB train station and Bahnhofstrasse .

Shortly after leaving the station, the Wynentalbahn runs on the former SBB railway line Aarau – Suhr . In the area of ​​the Suhr train station , it runs a short distance parallel to the SBB Zofingen – Lenzburg line . Between the stations Gränichen Töndler and Bleien Liebegg , the railway line runs around 100 meters from the main road along the banks of the Wyna . The route then leads alongside the main road to Oberkulm . This is followed by a section along a side street to Gontenschwil . After two tight curves, the main road is reached again at Zetzwil . After Leimbach there is another section independent of roads. Between Reinach Nord and the terminus in Menziken , the WSB uses a section of the former SBB railway line Beinwil am See - Beromünster .

After leaving Aarau train station, the Suhrentalbahn first runs through a 260-meter-long tunnel and then runs alongside the main road. The town through Unterentfelden and Oberentfelden takes place on a winding route. At the Oberentfelden train station, the Zofingen – Lenzburg SBB line is crossed at the same level and at a right angle. In the elongated village of Muhen , the route once ran in the middle of the Dorfstrasse, but since December 2004 a new section has been in operation around 50 meters away. The depot and the workshop are located at the Schöftland terminus .

history

Low-floor train with old paintwork in the Aarau WSB train station

In 1871, some communities in the Wynental founded a committee that submitted a license application for two railway lines . These should lead from Aarau via Oberkulm to Reinach and from Beinwil am See via Reinach to Menziken . Both routes should be standard gauge and be driven by steam locomotives . A year later, the authorities of the canton of Aargau approved the project, but it could not be carried out. The main reason was the disagreement about the lines through the narrow valley. Only the section between Beinwil am See and Menziken was built and opened in 1883, but this was done by the Seetalbahn (now SBB ). The line was extended in 1906 to Münster (today's Beromünster ).

There were also efforts to build a railway in the Suhrental. Here, however, a narrow-gauge, electrically operated train was planned from the outset, which should run as a tram for most of the route . In 1896 by the company Brown, Boveri & Cie. (BBC) was awarded the concession and soon after work began. The Aarau-Schöftland-Bahn (AS) started operating on November 19, 1901. In the meantime, those responsible in the Wynental had also come to the conclusion that a narrow-gauge tram would be more economical. Construction work began in January 1903. The opening of the Wynentalbahn (WTB) between Aarau and Reinach took place on March 5, 1904, its extension to Menziken a few weeks later on May 1. Both railways had their starting point on the Bahnhofplatz north of the Aarau SBB train station and were given a track connection at the beginning of 1906. The extension of the AS via Schöftland to Triengen (connection to the Sursee-Triengen Railway ) was never realized.

In 1924, the WTB opened its own train station at its current location south of the SBB tracks. As a result, the direct connection to the AS was lost, which continued to run through Aarau city center. The route in the middle of the road turned out to be increasingly problematic, which is why from 1945 the two railways were gradually relocated to their own route. In 1955, a city ​​bus service began in Aarau , and WTB was responsible for the management from the start. On June 24, 1958, the two companies, headed by Paul Diem as joint director since 1939, merged to form the Wynental and Suhrentalbahn (WSB), although the railways were not operationally linked. Diem remained director of the new company until 1973.

A connection between the two railway lines did not exist until 1967, when the northernmost section of the Suhrental Railway through the city center of Aarau was lifted and moved into a 260-meter-long tunnel. Both railways now had their starting point on the south side of the SBB station. With the timetable change on May 22, 1977, rail mail traffic on the Wynental and Suhrental Railway was discontinued and the Zi 54 used for this was moved to the Rhaetian Railway (RhB) and later to the Furka-Oberalp Railway (FO). The DZ 56 was sold to the FO, where it ran as the DZ 4354. Today it is used as a generator and baggage car for a tourist train in Madagascar.

Self-alignment, i.e. the relocation of the railway line away from the road, made great progress, for example in 1967 between Aarau and Distelberg or in 1985 a completely different route in Gränichen . Nevertheless, there were still numerous longer tram-like sections. The section through the villages of Reinach and Menziken in the upper Wynental was a particular cause for concern. On the busy main road, the trams drove in the middle of the road, sometimes with oncoming traffic. There were often accidents with considerable property damage. When passenger traffic was discontinued in 1991 on the parallel normal-gauge line Beinwil am See – Beromünster, planning began for relocating the WSB line to the now vacant SBB line. The re-gauging and adjustment work began in 1999 after the cessation of freight traffic. The new section Reinach Nord – Menziken was finally opened on December 15, 2002. Two years later, on December 5, 2004, another important project was opened, the relocation of the Suhrentalbahn in Muhen .

This left a noteworthy section with a tram-like character, namely the Aarau – Suhr section of the Wynentalbahn. SBB concluded on 12 December 2004, the standard gauge, in 1877 by the National Railway built route Aarau-Suhr for the passenger. This ran about three hundred meters east of the Suhrer Tramstrasse, in which the WSB also operated. The Grand Council of the Canton of Aargau unanimously decided in 2006 to relocate the WSB to the SBB route. The federal government added the project to the list of urgent investments for agglomeration traffic, whereby 50% of the construction costs could be paid from the infrastructure fund. Work on this section of the route began in 2008 and lasted two years. Since November 22, 2010, the trains of the Wynentalbahn have been running on the new route.

Vehicle fleet

WSB train in orange VST standard paint near Muhen

Low-floor control car with a modernized railcar

AVA ABe 4/12 71 "Saphir" in Aarau

Railcar

• BSe 4/4 116, (1901) Salon car with bar (nostalgic vehicle), discarded in 2012, sold for stationary use
• ex WTB Ce 4/4 1-4 (1904) SIG / MFO, all canceled
• Be 4/4 7–8 (1954) sold to Stern & Hafferl Verkehrsgesellschaft , there ET 23.111–112
• Be 4/4 9–14 (1965–1966) discarded, 2010–2012 still BDt 84
• Be 4/4 15–27 (1978–1979) without 18 (burned out), modernized 2007–2012
• ABe 4/8 ex Be 4/8 28–34 (1992–93)
• ABe 4/8 28–32 and 35–39 (1992–93) from 2010 assembled from 1 half WSB 28–32 and 1 half BDWM 21–25
• ABe 4/12 70-74 (2019)

Control car

• ABt 51–61 (2008–2009) Stadler Rail
• Bt 71–79 (conversion 1978), ex B 41–49 (1965), retired in 2009, bogies for ABt 51–61
• BDt 80–85 (1965), decommissioned in 2009/2012, bogies partly for ABt 51–61

Luggage railcar

• De 4/4 42 (1904) discarded
• De 4/4 43–45 (1974), 44 canceled in 2009 after fire damage, 43 and 45 with Be 4/4 6 canceled in 2013

literature

• Jakob Heer: WSB: Wynental- and Suhrentalbahn . AT Verlag, Aarau 1984, ISBN 3-85502-196-1 .
• Peter J. Walker: Rails through the Suhre and Wyna Valleys, Switzerland. Part 1: History, Early Development and Near-Disaster . Light Railway Transport League, London 1964.

Web links

Commons : Wynental- and Suhrentalbahn  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• AAR bus + bahn website

Individual evidence

1. ^ Hans Schweers: Railway Atlas Switzerland . Schweers + Wall, 2012, ISBN 978-3-89494-130-7 .
2. ^ Hans G. Wägli: Rail network Switzerland / Réseau ferré suisse . Swiss Federal Railways , General Secretariat, Bern 1980, p. 150 .
3. ↑ SBB. In: Online timetable. Retrieved August 31, 2014 (station names). 
4. ↑ Urs Helbling: Historic event: The merger of all Aargauer Bahnen is done. In: Aargauer Zeitung (Online) from June 20, 2018
5. ↑ Urs Helbling: The two railways BDWM and WSB are history. In: Aargauer Zeitung (Online) from June 19, 2018
6. ↑ Annual report 2012 Wynental and Suhrentalbahn. (PDF, 1.2 MB) (No longer available online.) AAR bus + bahn, 2012, archived from the original on December 19, 2013 ; Retrieved November 18, 2013 . 
7. ^ Andreas Steigmeier: Paul Diem. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland . February 28, 2003 , accessed April 15, 2020 .
8. ↑ Railway Amateur 06/1977 p. 339.
9. ↑ Trans Lemurie Express on the homepage of the Malagasy Railways
10. ↑ New WSB route opened in Buchs. Swiss Radio DRS , November 21, 2010, accessed on November 25, 2010 . 
11. ^ Aargau traffic: data sheet. Retrieved January 18, 2019 .