Tragic accident at the Gelmerbahn !

Handegg, SwitzerlandA worker from KWO was killed on December 14th, 2005 at the Gelmerbahn !Some workers were transported by helicopter to the Gelmersee to do some works at the dam. At the end of their work the weather was too bad to transport back the workers by helicopter again. So they decided to go down the valley by using the steps which are on the side of the Gelmerbahn funicular.
I must remind that the Gelmerbahn is the steepest funicular of Switzerland : 106 % !
At the end of the steepest section, one worker slept on an icy step and fell about 6-8 meters ! There is a litte bridge which he fell over on some rocks.
The worker was killed!

The Gelmerbahn is not in use in winter and there was also snow on the track. So they could not use the funicular.


The Gelmerbahn in summer.

Switzerland – Public transport to be smoke-free. From 11 December 2005.

Engelberg, Switzerland.

“The decision was taken to do away with smoking compartments on all CFF-SBB-FFS trains! As of 11 December 2005 smoking will no longer be allowed… even if many of the old smoking compartments still have ashtrays. It will be some six months before the final ashtray has been removed.”

At last! This is a decision I was waiting for a while!!

Switzerland owns one of the most modern, useful, precise railway network. But all their trains have entire smoking wagons, or all the wagons are cut into two parts, smoking and non smoking!

This is really ridiculous… and obsolete!

Here is an example. I was in Engelberg on April 27, 2005. I took the Zentralbahnen train to Luzern. The train was composed of 3 wagons: 2 non smoking wagons and one smoking wagon. The train was really crowded! None exactly, the 2 non smoking wagons were crowded and noisy… the smoking wagon was… empty!

I don’t like crowd! I don’t like smoke either! So I decided to climb up in the smoking wagon because it was empty… I thought it was a chance for me…! Not a chance at all! The smoking wagon was full of a horrible smoke stench!!! Impossible to stay in the wagon like that…

Here is one of the non smoking wagons…


Here is the empty smoking wagon…!

“La ficelle” Lausanne-Ouchy at Villard-de-Lans, in France ???!!!

Lausanne, Switzerland, December 16, 2005..The Lausanne-Ouchy rolling stock could be give up to the Villard-de-Lans Council !

Today, a delegation of the Villard-de-Lans Council met the Transport Lausannois managers to study the transfer of the rolling stock to France.

Villard-de-Lans is located on the top of the Vercors mountain, in France near Grenoble.

The Villard-de-Lans Council has a project to build a new cog wheel train to serve Villard 1300, a new sky ressort, which will be built, end 2008, above Le Balcon de Villard.

Hungerburg – The dismantling started December 14th

Innsbruck, Austria.The Hungerburg Bahn started to be dismantled on December 14th, 2005!

The cable was sawed and the two carriages were transported onto a truck to a warehouse. One of the two carriages is intended to be exposed in the Eisenbahn Museum in Vienna.

Other photos here…


Note, under the carriage, the cable which was just sawed.