SBB - Blog Posts

Rheinfall: a second look

The weather improved greatly throughout my day at Schaffhausen, and I'd read that the falls are lit up at night, so I decided to give it a second look. And this was the view from the scenic Neuhausen Rheinfall station when I got back:

The falls roughly face West, so the evening is actually the best time to photograph them as the sunlight hits them directly.

Also, the boats stop at 6:30 in the summer, so we get a clearer view of the pool below, and no-one standing on the rock in the middle.

The trail on the Laufen side remains open though, so people can still see the falls up close, as described in the previous post.

The bridge on the far left of the top picture and at the back of the second picture is a rail bridge carrying the line from Neuhausen (central) to Schloss Laufen. It's no doubt one of the most spectacular in Europe, and it doubles up as a footbridge, allowing people to walk alongside some Swiss Dostos.

Oh, and they do light up the falls at night.

It's been a wild couple of weeks in France, so when it got to a point when I had to go outside, I couldn't set my mind to find somewhere interesting. So I settled on nowhere special, just somewhere across the border with a train station and countryside not too far.

Lahr/Schwarzwald. Perfect.

Actually, there was a slight purpose to the trip given the time of day. I was hoping to see what was running on the Frankfurt-Milan "EuroCity Express". I'd seen an Italian train run it before, and this time it was a RABe 501 Giruno, the most recent Swiss high-speed train. I'd seen it before, but not caught a decent shot of it, so here it is!

The busy Karlsruhe-Basel main line sees a lot of traffic: higher speed like the ICE 4 at the very top and the ECE (I say higher because they can't travel at proper high speed because of everything else), regional trains, international freight... Among the inter-city trains out that morning was this Flixtrain, the same Flix who run buses across continental Europe. They have a few lines in Germany, using some old Inter-Regio carriages.

For an outing where I was just expecting to watch trains go by like a cow in a field, I dare say got more than I was banking for that morning, as a Baureihe 708.3 track inspector (Doktor Gelb?) and a brand new Mireo Smart regional set with no livery, either undergoing testing or out for delivery, made some surprise appearances.

The tri-national S-Bahn of Basel

Due to its location, Basel attracts people from three countries, and the rail network reflects that. On top of lines within Switzerland, one line arrives from France at Basel Central station, and several arrive from Germany at the Badischer Bahnhof on the North side of the Rhine. My trip to Augst via Basel and Wyhlen was a chance to ride on this suburban network of three companies in three countries.

Starting after lunch with the Hochrheinbahn which runs from Basel Bad., along the Northern side of the Rhine in Germany. This is the only line out of Basel that isn't electrified, so Baureihe 641 Diesel railcars run the route. We have this type of railcar in France too, it was designed as a response to a joint French-German tender for regional trains. Designed by De Dietrich and Linke-Hofmann-Busch, which were both bought by Alstom shortly after, it is the first example of what would become the Coradia platform.

On the Swiss side, the S-Bahn sees RABe 521 commuter trains run between Basel Central and Frick. This type of train is made by the Swiss company Stadler and is marketed as... the FLIRT. Stadler does this a lot, they also have the KISS and SMILE platforms, and each is the result of a convoluted acronym in German, though this one translated very nicely into English: Fast Light Intercity and Regional Train.

Finally, the French line of the S-Bahn goes out as far as Mulhouse, and is currently operated by electric AGC (Automotrice Grande Capacité - high-capacity unit) regional trains built by Bombardier (also since bought out by Alstom). 200 km/h express trains from Strasbourg also reach Basel Central, with the push-pull sets we already presented. The line from Mulhouse to Basel Central is electrified with French voltage (25 kV 50 Hz AC), which is different to the rest of the Swiss network (15 kV 16.7 Hz AC), hence the SNCF can run their trains into Basel with few adaptations (mainly comms).

And that's it for my tri-national tri-trip over the April-May break! Back to some older material next, it's time to look at Japan again.