Zurich , switzerland rails System 4k video

A nation of railway enthusiasts: a history of the Swiss railways History Travelling over 2,000 kilometres per capita per year, the Swiss are among the world's keenest train travellers. With around 5,300 kilometres of railway lines, Switzerland has one of the most extensive railway networks in Europe. But why does this small, landlocked country have the world's densest transport network? What drove the Swiss to build railway lines at such altitudes – sometimes over 3,000 metres? Let's go back in time to find out! by Swiss Travel System AG expand Publication date February 5th, 2020 The foundation stone for the construction of the Swiss railway system was laid abroad: by the time neighbouring countries had built quite advanced railway networks, Switzerland was still largely reliant on road traffic. The Strasbourg–Basel Railway Company set the ball rolling in 1844 by building a railway line from Strasbourg in Alsace to Basel. This spurred the Swiss to try to catch up. The first plans to build railways in Switzerland had already been made in the 1820s. Negotiations dragged on for over 25 years because of political instability and the cantons' conflicting interests. Merchants who saw in railways a means to transport goods at lower cost supported the project, while local trades- and businessmen who worried about competition from cheaper products brought in from other regions opposed it. The merchant lobby prevailed: the first rail line built exclusively on Swiss territory, the Swiss Northern Railway between Zurich and Baden, was opened in 1847. It was popularly known as the 'Spanish Bun Railway' (Spanisch-Brötli-Bahn), because Spanish buns from Baden's bakeries were a highly prized delicacy in Zurich. Mondaine clock Zurich train station Spanisch-Brötli-Bahn Spanisch-Brötli-Bahn In the 1820s, while the first railway lines were being built in the UK, and soon after in France and Germany, the focus in Switzerland was still on waterways. Ships were the most convenient mode of transport here – for goods and for passengers. Plans for railway infrastructure were already under way, but the national political institutions needed to drive forward railway construction were lacking. It was not until 1844, with the opening of the French line from Strasbourg to the Swiss border in Basel, that the country first came into contact with actual railways. This did not however spark any sudden construction frenzy at the time. Not until a further three years later (1847) was the first railway line inaugurated on exclusively Swiss soil: the Northern Railway line from Zurich to Baden – better known as the 'Spanisch-Brötli-Bahn', named after a Spanish pastry popular in the region at the time. A beacon of hope, certainly, but the northern railway remained the only railway line in the country for years to come. It took another five years before the Federal Railway Act of 1852 set off a railway building boom. Suddenly railway companies shot up all over the country. The Federal Act on the Construction and Operation of Railways on the Territory of the Swiss Confederation (1852) enabled private companies to build railway lines and stations and operate them. The cantons were responsible for issuing the licences, as the federal government's scope for intervention at the time was limited to matters of national defence. Throughout the country, new railway connections and stations were now built wherever it made economic sense. Thanks to the railways, the distribution of goods became much more efficient and therefore cheaper. Traffic hubs such as those in Zurich and Winterthur emerged. Even smaller towns such as Olten saw an undreamt-of gain in importance thanks to the railways. The rail network came to mark the divide between the nation's economic and social heartland and the periphery. And by 1860, just eight years after Parliament's landmark decision, Switzerland was already the country with the densest rail network in Europe. Switzerland's biggest construction site: the Gotthard Railway Meanwhile, much discussion was going on over the planned route to link northern and southern Switzerland by rail: abroad, construction of the first Alpine railways was forging ahead at Semmering and through the Mont-Cenis Pass, but in Switzerland people were still arguing over which route to settle on. After all, in addition to the Gotthard, the Lukmanier, Simplon and Great St Bernard passes were also possible contenders for a transalpine route. The danger of Switzerland being bypassed altogether grew steadily from the mid-19th century, and so the Alpine transit question became ever more urgent.

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