INTRO: SBB will celebrate 150 years of railways in Switzerland with the biggest jump in train-km since 1982. This first manifestation of Bahn 2000 marks the start of real improvements in what SBB can offer the passenger
BYLINE: Nicolas Perrin
Deputy Delegate, Bahn 2000
Swiss Federal Railways
IT IS 15 YEARS since Swiss Federal Railways set a world standard for passenger convenience by introducing an integrated regular-interval timetable. Development and implementation of Bahn 2000 has now reached the stage where the benefits of new trains and infrastructure are becoming tangible.
In the early 1980s, the aim of the Taktfahrplan was to attract more passengers by providing connecting trains at hourly intervals across most of the country. Its success is demonstrated by the fact that Swiss people make more rail journeys than any other Europeans.
Taktfahrplan spawned the Bahn 2000 concept, presented to the nation in 1985. The idea was simple - ’more often, faster, more direct and more comfortable’ - a national hub-and-spoke service, with journey times between hubs cut to just under an hour.
New construction would only be needed to ease bottlenecks, or where inter-hub times were in excess of 60min. Shorter overall journey times would come largely from reduced waiting time between connections. Benefits would be spread over the whole network, rather than just core routes.
Approval by referendum on December 6 1987 began a period of development and construction; many of the original concepts were modified as a result of higher demand forecasts, tighter restrictions on new civil works, and cost underestimates.
A revision of the project, applying new technology to rolling stock design, allowed some costly infrastructure work to be dropped, keeping the modified Bahn 2000 within the original budget. Parliamentary approval for revision of the phasing of the programme was granted in 1994. Since then SBB has been working on the first phase, keeping to cost and schedule.
Trains before track
Pressure to keep costs down saw iterative optimisation of the overall passenger offer against the cost of rolling stock and infrastructure. Priority was given to improving service through better organisation, then through better rolling stock. Lastly, new infrastructure would be considered.
The advantage of new trains against new infrastructure is that benefits to the passenger are more immediate and tangible. Rolling stock can be adapted to suit market conditions, and the changed priorities should also help reduce operating costs and environmental impact.
A vital aspect of the deal for the passenger is high punctuality - essential for reliable, but short connecting times. SBB aims to run 95% of trains within 3min of booked timing, and 75% within 1min.
Rolling stock measures
Impuls 97 will be implemented with three rolling stock innovations.
IC2000 double-deck trains will raise passenger capacity without using additional paths. The first two rakes will go into service this summer between St Gallen and Interlaken; three more sets will be deployed later this year. They offer 40% more seats per coach than a standard Mk IV, and raise the maximum number of passengers that already busy routes can handle. Per seat purchase price and maintenance costs are lower, though comfort is higher.
Push-pull operation has spread from S-Bahn and regional trains to InterCity and fast services. A fleet of 60 MkIV driving trailer cars from Schindler has allowed fixed-formation operation, cutting light locomotive movements at busy stations like Zürich and Luzern. This has freed capacity for additional trains.
Key to reducing the need for new lines is the use of tilting trains, able to cut inter-hub journey times to under an hour over existing alignments. SBB ordered 24 sets last July from a consortium of Adtranz, Schindler and Fiat-SIG, the latter supplying tilt technology. The prototype set is due to be delivered by mid-1998, with fleet service on the Lausanne - Biel - Zürich route due in 2001 (p325).
Infrastructure impact
Even with innovative rolling stock and careful planning, Bahn 2000 still requires around 100 infrastructure projects, ranging from optimising the layout of points and crossings to reduce conflicting movements, through extra platforms and multi-tracking, to completely new main lines.
Biggest of all is the 46 km Mattstetten - Rothrist route between Bern and Olten (RG 6.96 p319). Work is already under way at both ends, where short cutoffs have already been completed (the Grauholz and Born tunnels). Boring of the 4·7 km Murgenthal tunnel is in hand. Concerns remain over the environmental impact of the rest of the line, and so the government has established a procedure for objections to be raised through the national court. When complete, the line will allow InterCity trains to run at up to 200 km/h, cutting the Bern - Zürich journey time to 57min.
Although upgrading and multi-tracking will ease congestion on main routes, the node stations will become increasingly busy. The problem is especially acute at Zürich, where surface platforms must accommodate 26 arrivals and departures in a 22min period of each half-hour. SBB timetable compilers are already working on the timetable for 2005 to ensure its smooth operation. But as traffic grows, an increasing problem will be the number of passengers changing trains, placing considerable strain on the station’s circulating areas. A SFr475m expansion and rebuilding of Zürich HB will see construction of further walkways connecting the platforms.
Other stations to be expanded include Aarau, being rebuilt as part of the main line quadrupling project, and Olten, where SFr255m is being spent on squeezing four new platforms onto railway land on the west side of the station and rebuilding existing platforms.
Signalling is also being upgraded, with remaining mechanical signalling being replaced by 1999 under a SFr174m programme. Electronic interlocking has allowed capacity increases, with 2min headways lifting the number of trains through a double track line to over 350 per day.
Total infrastructure spend on works completed, under construction or committed is around SFr3bn.
Implementation
Impuls 97 goes live with the timetable change in June, an appropriate way to celebrate our jubilee. It puts into service a number of individual Bahn 2000 projects as early as possible, so that passengers begin to benefit.
SBB will increase its train-km run by about 4%, with frequency stepped up to half-hourly on the Zürich - Bern, Zürich - St Gallen, and Bern - Fribourg routes, with consequential timetable restructuring.
Capacity will be augmented between St Gallen and Interlaken when the first two rakes of IC2000 double-deck coaches are put into service. Structure gauge enlargement, including a week-long closure of the Spiez - Interlaken line, has been undertaken over the last year to give sufficient clearance for the new trains. A spin-off benefit is that these routes are now available for 4m-high piggyback traffic. The rest of the fleet of 58 vehicles will be phased in during this year.
New infrastructure coming on line with Impuls 97 includes the four-tracking between Aarau and Rupperswil, sections of double-tracking, such as Luzern - Zug, and station rebuilds at Aarau and Lausanne.
After Impuls
Stage two of the Bahn 2000 project comes in 2001, to coincide with the national EXPO. This will include the completion of the Lausanne - Biel - Zürich corridor upgrade. The fleet of tilting trains on this route will cut 20min from the Lausanne - Zürich journey time, and, when combined with the main line via Fribourg, will give a high quality, half-hourly interval service between eastern and western Switzerland.
Double-deck trains cannot run beyond Bern on SBB’s east-west main line because of insufficient gauge clearance throughout much of the Kreis I western region. Work to improve this will be carried out over the next two or three years. This includes an intense two nights and a day blockade of Perraudettaz tunnel between Fribourg and Lausanne, with profile enlargement work due to be shown on national television.
Further double-deck coaches are due to be ordered in 1997-98 to increase capacity on services from Bern to Lausanne and Genève.
Original goals achieved
Full implementation of Bahn 2000 will see significant service improvements. Long distance train frequency on a further seven routes linking pairs of ’hub’ stations will be doubled to half-hourly, with connecting travel times cut by an average of 8%, and new through routes launched.
Centrepiece of this last phase will be inauguration of the Mattstetten - Rothrist new line, and expansion of the Zürich hub to give more, shorter connections each half-hour. Reducing the time between Switzerland’s political and economic centres of Bern and Zürich to just 57min embodies the original aims of the Taktfahrplan: more often, faster, more direct, and more comfortable. o
CAPTION: Vital infrastructure for Impuls 97 was the completion of quadrupling from west of Aarau, through the rebuilt station (top) and east (above) to Rupperswil
CAPTION: Murgenthal tunnel forms one end of the Mattstetten - Rothrist new line between Bern and Olten
CAPTION: Work on the Adler tunnel between Mutttenz and Liestal near Basel is well under way. It will divert traffic from Bern and the L
