With yesterday’s very wet start I was a bit stumped what to take pictures of, then, as I put on my rain suit in Interlaken Ost station car park I knew it was time for a bit of trainspotting!

Switzerland is a real public transport delight; buses, trains, lake steamers, it has the lot. Moreover thay all run as smooth as a Swiss watch. Interlaken is a real centre of activity West Station interchanges between buses, trains and steamers; Ost, buses, standard gauge and metre gauge trains.
This is a Berner Oberland Bahn metre gauge train that serves the ski centres of Grindelwald and Lauterbrunnen. These trains are rack and adhesion, meaning that they only need to engage the rack between the rails on the steepest bits of line.

Zentralbahn trains run on metre gauge tracks from Luzern to Interlaken and call here at Brienz.

They connect with the Brienz -Rotthorn Bahn steam powered mountain railway trains. This is one of the loco’s used. It’s quite new, built in 1996, oil fired, rack and pinion, and geared drive to boot…lovely!

You may be wondering why it looks like it is kneeling down? The boiler is mounted like that to ensure that the firebox crown remains covered with water when on the slopes of the mountain.

The valve gear, a beautiful bit of kit!

Then, after surviving the Grimsel, we called into Gletsch, HQ of the Furka Pass Steam Railway. This metre gauge rack and adhesion line is the old direct Furka Oberalp Bahn route that was taken over by preservationists when the F.O. Opened it’s new diversion tunnel in 1982. Trains only run at weekends, so I was out of luck and had to make do with a couple of Phots around the yard.

Later on I was delighted to find that the view from my balcony in Domodossola included not only the mountains, but three railway lines! So I sat out in the late evening sun, writing the blog, eating my supper and watching the trains go by! Good eh! Mrs Dookes would have hated it!

This is one of the piggy back trains that runs through the Simplon Tunnel, hauled by dedicated Swiss electric loco’s.

…and how the lorries are carried. Sorry about the standard of those last two pics, but it was getting dark!

So there you go, motorbikes and train spotting in one day, can’t be bad!

Dookes