Tag: Railway

Inauguration du nouveau tunnel du Lötschberg

Demain, samedi 16 juin 2007, le tunnel de base du Lötschberg sera ouvert à la circulation commerciale!

BLS

<< Dans une première phase, les trains ne circuleront dans les deux tubes du tunnel de base du Lötschberg qu'à raison de deux tiers seulement. Cette construction par étapes du Lötschberg, en tant que voie de transit alpin, se fonde sur la décision du Conseil fédéral du 24 avril 1996 de ne réaliser les NLFA (Nouvelles lignes ferroviaires alpines), en raison des coûts, qu'après redimensionnement du projet. En fonction du montant qu'elle atteindra, la prochaine étape d'extension sera soumise à une décision politique du Conseil fédéral ou du Parlement. >>

Pour plus de détail sur le nouveau tunnel et son extension par étapes, voir la page correspondante. 

Le site officiel du tunnel de base du Lötschberg. 

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Opening of the new Lötschberg base tunnel

Tomorrow, Saturday 16th, 2007, the new Lötschberg base tunnel will be opened!

<< In phase 1, only one third of the Lötschberg base tunnel will have two operational tubes. This phased expansion of the Lötschberg AlpTransit project is the result of a decision by the Federal Council on 24 April 1996 to re-dimension NRLA (New Rail Link through the Alps) for reasons related to costs. Depending on the costs, a further expansion phase will be subject to a policy decision by the Federal Council or parliament. >>

For more details about this new tunnel and the phased construction, see this page. 

The official web site of the Lötschberg base tunnel. 

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…!