Rheinfall railway

The Rheinfallbahn from Winterthur to Schaffhausen is a standard gauge railway in Switzerland. It crosses south-west of Schaffhausen the Rhine just above the Rhine Falls, which gave the name of the web.

History

1853 was founded on the initiative of Heinrich Moser, the Rhine Falls Railroad Company. Under the leadership of Senior Site Manager Carl Ruland from Munich railway construction began in 1855. Here, the construction of the section Andelfingen Schaffhausen was far more difficult than the construction of the section Andelfingen -Winterthur, because it had for two bridges and a tunnel ( the Rötitunnel was built later ) are built, for which partially enormous earthworks were necessary. The Rhine Falls Bridge carries since the late 1950s, both sides of a pedestrian bridge that connects Neuhausen Rhine Falls with Laufen and is used by visitors to the waterfall.

Even before the opening operation, the company was taken over by Swiss Northeastern Railway (NOB ) on 4 November 1856 which opened the operation on 16 April 1857. Schaffhausen was thus connected via the Zürcher Weinland with Winterthur. From there existed rail links via the Zurich main station to to Brugg and in the other direction as far as Roman Horn and St. Gallen.

Originally the route Zurich should connect with Southern Germany, 1897 but a shorter route via Bülach was opened, so that today only practical driving local trains on the Rheinfallbahn.

The route was changed on 11 April 1943, the electric operation.

On January 10, 2013 met with in Neuhausen Rhine Falls an SBB HVZ double-decker Schaffhausen -Winterthur and coming from Winterthur Thurbo GTW composition head-on. The Thurbo driver had ignored a stop signal. Rescue workers from Schaffhausen, Zurich and Germany moved immediately with a massive contingent. Fortunately, only 26 passengers were injured, but there was property damage in the millions. The disobeyed signal was secured only with Integra - Signum and ZUB not.

Operation

The track is since 1902 owned by the Swiss Federal Railways (SBB ), and since May 1990 part of the S -Bahn Zurich. The trunk is used principally by the S33 ( operated by the Thurbo ) and since December 2006, in addition by the S16. The tight schedule hardly allows freight trains or special trains on the single track. Due to lack of development only a limping half hour is possible on the track, because the required intersection at Winterthur is only single track. As part of the 4.Teilergänzungen the S-Bahn Zurich it comes to exchange into the S11 which runs Altstetten today still in the rush hours of Schaffhausen and in the other half- hour of Roman Horn to Zurich, comes from 2017 per half hour of Wila and Seuzach and continue direction Winterthur to Aarau. In the wine country comes in return the S12 and drives per hour from Schaffhausen / Wil to Brugg. For this purpose, a new line in the wine country to use, the S24, it runs every hour and only stop in Andelfingen and Neuhausen comes in the wine country of Schaffhausen / Weinfelden to train. The S16 is, however, canceled and only drives to the airport. Thus, the entire wine country with the S12 has a direct train to Zurich.

Currently (schedule 2014 ) run the following lines on the Rheinfallbahn:

• S 11 Zurich HB - HB Winterthur - Schaffhausen (runs on weekdays 3 times each in main load direction; holds only in Marthalen and Neuhausen )
• S 16 ( Thayngen - Winterthur HB - ) Zurich Airport - Zurich HB - Herrliberg field miles ( - mi ) ( holding only in Andelfingen and Neuhausen )
• S 33 Winterthur HB - Andelfingen - Schaffhausen
• SN3 Winterthur - Schaffhausen ( - Stein am Rhein) (runs only on weekend nights )