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SWISS FEDERAL RAILWAYS

Tests underway for new Swiss ‘monster’ trains

Swiss Federal Railways (SBB) is grappling with how to handle longer passenger trains than it has ever operated before.

Tests underway for new Swiss 'monster' trains
Image: Bombardier

The 16-car double-decker trains, set to go into operation at the end of 2015, are 400 metres long, requiring special training for drivers and technicians, according to a press report.

SBB has been conducting simulations since the beginning of the month to see how such trains would actually operate.

“We wanted to learn in reality how to overcome problems with these monsters,” SBB spokesman Reto Scharli is quoted as saying by the 20 Minutes online news site.

The Twindexx Swiss Express trains, produced by Bombardier, are capable of carrying 1,400 passengers in their longest versions.

They are part of a 1.9-billion-franc ($2 billion) order announced by the state-owned railway — the biggest in its history — to supply 59 new trains, totalling 436 carriages, with the first ones set for delivery next year.

The Twindexx trains, with a top speed of 230 kilometres per hour, are to be built in Villeneuve in the canton of Vaud and in Görlitz, Germany, while their propulsion and control systems are being produced in Västerås, Sweden.

The trains are touted for passenger comfort, their ability to negotiate curves at high speed and their energy efficiency.

 SBB locomotive drivers, such as Roger Walder, expressed concerns about the longer trains because he said it will be necessary to arrive at stations more slowly than before.

“We will lose time,” Walder told 20 Minutes.

A slowdown of this kind is something that “in day-to-day practice we cannot allow," he said, adding that there are visibility issues with the new train.

The Swiss union of locomotive drivers, meanwhile, has raised concerns about the lack of a proper entrance door for the driver’s cabin.

“Drivers will have to thread their way between passenger luggage to go to work,” union president Hubert Giger told 20 Minutes.

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TRAIN CRASH

One hurt as crane falls on Zurich passenger train

A crane fell onto a Swiss passenger train entering a Zurich station Saturday, causing massive material damage but miraculously leaving only one person slightly injured, police said Saturday.

One hurt as crane falls on Zurich passenger train
Zürich Oerlikon station. Photo: Wikimedia Commons

The crane toppled during track work near the Zurich Oerlikon station just before 10am and its arm slammed into a long-distance train arriving from Zurich airport, police said in a statement.

It was not known what caused the accident and the Zurich police said they had launched an investigation.

None of the some 250 passengers onboard were hurt, but a worker suffered a hand injury and was taken to hospital.

The passengers were evacuated and walked the short distance to the station, police said.

One train wagon was smashed and police estimated that the incident caused hundreds of thousands of francs worth of damage.

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