Tag: europe

  • 2026 is the Wuppertal Schwebebahn 125th Anniversary! The railway’s first ever test run took place on 5th December 1898, thus the world’s longest surviving monorail system began life much earlier than is often thought. The 125th anniversary is related to the actual opening of the line in 1901 – whilst also not forgetting the Kasier’s…

  • The picturesque upper Lötschental is where the recent calamity involving the village of Blatten occurred. It is a disaster of gigantic proportions and the huge avalanche and mud slide from the Birch glacier has buried the village to a depths of between 50 and 200 metres. That’s pretty deep if one thinks about it. Fifty…

  • In writing about railways and canal tunnels one might perhaps wonder why railways and canals in general are not the subject of discussion – apart from the Railway and Canal Historical Society who have existed since the 1950s with the aim of bringing history and topics on both together. There’s no doubt railways were substantially…

  • The Opicina tram in Northern Italy, the world’s only tramway of its kind, has been shut nearly 5 years. Following an accident on Via Commerciale between Trieste and Opicina in August 2016, it was forced to close. The line was meant to reopen in March 2020 but then came the COVID pandemic. The last time…

  • With the conversion of the line from Bulle to Broc-Fabrique (and its continuation as a private rail network right into the Nestle chocolate factory itself) the delightful La Gruyère system (the GFM, aka the Gruyère-Fribourg-Morat or as it was officially known, the Compagnie des Chemins de fer Fribourgeois) is no more. The 42 km of…

  • This second part covers the new Bulle station and the famous Bulle to Broc line in part. This line is famous because it connected directly to the celebrated Nestle chocolate factory in Broc. Also famous for considerable standard gauge freight traffic carried via the narrow gauge as well as the celebrated ‘Chocolate Express.’ Not now…

  • In the canton of Fribourg, the TPF (previously known as the GFM) has a long metre gauge route (as well as two standard gauge lines) that make up the authority’s diverse transportation offerings, which include trolleybuses. Enhancements have been made to almost all of the company’s lines, including the standard gauge, and some of these…

  • The Köln-Bonner Eisenbahn’s (KBE – or the Cologne to Bonn Railway) Rheinuferbahn once provided local and express trains between Köln and Bonn. There was a substantial freight operation too with large marshalling yards servicing local industries. The company stayed independent to the very end and it would have been around today had its finances not…

  • Revisiting Meudon

    Meudon is a major icon in the history of photograph and its often used as an example in the evolution of photographic composition. Not only that its a famous railway picture. The scene depicts a subject carrying a wrapped parcel (probably a painting) up Rue du Docteur Vuillieme whilst a steam engine is seen crossing the lofty…

Toggle Dark Mode