European Railroad Discussion > Elementary!

I am now back in Lyon after an excellent weekend in Switzerland. I couldn't get the rest of the Switzerland pictures up until now because my account expired and I had to renew it.

On Sunday, I went to Meiringen, a dramatic village in a box canyon, where my great-grandmother lived and Sherlock Holmes was pushed off Reinenbach Falls by his nemesis Moriarty. Meiringen is accessed from Lucerne by a tidy red-and-white cog train, emblematic of Switzerland's truly outstanding railway system. Nearly anywhere there is a person living in Switzerland, it can be accessed via train and postbus. Just what is a postbus? Well, the mail must be delivered, no matter how isolated a place is. So, somebody in Switzerland had the brilliant idea to run a whole bus up to remote villages, which carries not only the mail but passengers as well. What's more, postbus departures are timed to the arrivals of trains, so traveling in Switzerland is simply elementary, my dear Watson! (And, it must be remembered, Watson had all the train times out of London memorized.)

Photo 1: The exterior of the Lucerne station. The official name for the Swiss railway network is SBB CFF FFS, the three acronyms meaning "Swiss National Railways" in German, French, and Italian respectively.

Photo 2: The EasyJet train from yesterday next to an older SBB locomotive.

Photo 3: A large locomotive idles with a trans-Alpine train, on its way to go through the Lötschberg Base Tunnel, the longest all-land railway tunnel in the world.

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Photo 4: A train bursts out of the side of a train.

Photo 5: Looking at the concourse from the mezzanine at the Lucerne station.

Photo 6: The lineup of trains. And, I'm afraid, the ludicrous lingerie ad. I wonder how much the lingerie company had to pay to buy LITERALLY 75% OF THE AD SCREENS IN SWITZERLAND.

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Photo 7: Another type of commuter train. Over 600 trains arrive and depart Lucerne terminal each day.

Photo 8: The train I was on, a narrow-gauge partly-cog train to Interlaken Ost.

Photo 9: The train's interior.

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Photo 10: The large windows of the train...and a mountain goat.

Photo 11: The foggy Lake Lucerne.

Photo 12: Some nice cliffs along the line. These little trains go quite fast.

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Photo 13: A map of the route (upside-down relating to the cardinal points) on the train's tray tables.

Photo 14: There are numerous large lakes in Switzerland. This one is by Sachseln.

Photo 15: A classic Swiss house to the other side of the train in Sachseln.

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Photo 16: In the small town of Giswil. After Giswil, the train connected to a cog rack, reaching heights so steep that it was impossible to stand up in the train, to cross the Brönig Pass to Meiringen.

Photo 17: Climbing above the misty valley on the cog rack.

Photo 18: High above Giswil.

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Photo 20: The next stop was Lungern. Lungern also has a lake, and this one had a bathtub ring showing its normal height. I wonder why it was low.

Photo 21: Curving through the Swiss countryside.

Photo 22: The village of Lungern.

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Photo 23: After Lungern, we began to see snow.

Photo 24: Dramatic mountain vistas.

Photo 25: A pristine schlollop of snow.

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Photo 26: Descending into the valley of Meiringen.

Photo 27: A classic Swiss scene.

Photo 28: Arriving in Meiringen, we see another train, this one with a locomotive.

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Photo 29: Our train at Meiringen. Due to the topography (box canyon), Meiringen is a terminal station, where the Lucerne-Interlaken trains reverse.

Photo 30: The Meiringen station.

Photo 31: In Meiringen, I rode an aerial tram up to another village, where I ate a big pile of meat and potatoes and cheese, did a little skiing, and returned to Meiringen. All of a sudden, my computer's spell check has forgiven me for misspelling "Meiringen".

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Photo 32: Back in Meiringen, in the late afternoon, a large mountain (Monch? Eiger?) basks in the sunlight above an Interlaken-bound train.

Photo 33: The "Luzern-Interlaken Express" is the least express-like train I've ever ridden. It stops everywhere.

Photo 34: In the place of the mountain goat, we now have the Water Tower, a Lucerne landmark which is not a water tower, but rather a tower in water.

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Photo 35: Several little waterfalls on the ascent to Brönig.

Photo 36: With the mountains as the true horizon, we now see the steepness of the cog incline.

Photo 37: Swiss chalets in the mountaintop village of Brönig.

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Photo 38: In the Brönig station. Here we see a postbus.

Photo 39: Clearly a narrow-gauge track.

Photo 40: Produced by Paramount Pictures™. The Cheesy End.

Tor in Only Lyon



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/18/15 09:21 by Torisgod.

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Hey, I'm going to sue Todd. (I like writing in italics now.) Seriously, can you no longer type ™ with the new server? My ™ after "Paramount Pictures" got removed after the changeover and I can't even edit it!

Tor in Only Lyon