In the Swiss district of Jura-Nord vaudois in the canton of Vaud, there is a small electric regional train service of the kind that used to be common in many places in Europe: Operating on standard gauge 1,345 mm with a total length of only 3.9 km, it provides a connection between the small town of Orbe and the main railway line of the Schweizerische Bundesbahn SBB in Chavornay, and is still considered an important feeder service for both passenger and freight traffic.
After decades of passenger transport by railcars of local manufacture, there was an urgent need for new vehicles last year. A train set bought second-hand years ago by the Sihltal-Zürich-Uetliberg-Bahn (SZU) had been taken out of service and scrapped in 2020/21, and the two-axle railcar 14 newly built by Stadler for the railway in 1990 suffered major failure and seems to be beyond repair.
After temporary bus replacement services since 20 November 2021, the operator Travys (Transports Vallée de Joux-Yverdon-les-Bains-Ste-Croix), which maintains several lines in the region, decided to purchase two second-hand but very well preserved dual-system light rail vehicles. They had spent the first 28 years of their lives on the Karlsruhe Tram-Train light rail network and originally even belonged to Deutsche Bahn before being taken over by the Albtal-Verkehrs-Gesellschaft (AVG) in 2019 – numbered 819 and 820. The commissioning of numerous new dual-system light rail cars allowed them to be handed over to the Travys in June 2022. Since 4 July 2022, one of the two railcars has been commuting daily on the route from Chavornay to Orbe. At the beginning of August, the timetable on the line was extended once again, and on weekdays there is now a half-hourly service over long stretches – without any doubt a remarkable service offer for a town with just 7,000 inhabitants.
The company Chemin de fer Orbe-Chavornay (OC) operated the line electrically with 750 V direct current right from the start since it opened in April 1894 – it was thus the first electric railway on standard gauge in the country. The construction of the railway was justified above all by the lively freight traffic to various industrial plants, for which 2 electric locomotives and a diesel locomotive are still available today. Several of the electric railcars used for passenger and freight transport in the past – some of which more than 100 years old – luckily went into preservation.
From Switzerland to the Mark Brandenburg
In 2013, one of the historic vehicles of the railway was actually transferred to Germany. It is the railcar Bde 4/4, which was put into service in 1920 with a vehicle of identical construction. A small modernisation took place at the beginning of the 1950s. The wooden body was covered with a sheet metal body and the electrical system was slightly modified. Thanks to the excellent maintenance, the railcar was still in daily use until 2013 before it was replaced by new acquisitions.
A private railway museum (Wymann family) in the Swiss town of Kallnach near Bern was housing a number of unique pieces of Swiss railway history in addition to the railcar 13. However, the museum had to close in 2017 and the collection was dissolved. The Wymann family turned to the Museumsbahn Buckower Kleinbahn e.V. association in Märkische Schweiz, 50 km east of Berlin, in search of a new owner for a special vehicle. The Buckower Kleinbahn itself did not own a vehicle from the time of the start of electric operation in 1930, so the Buckower Museumsbahn had a unique opportunity to acquire a historic vehicle from the time of its conversion to an electric railway line and thus save it from being scrapped. After a short-term fundraising campaign, the railcar was transported to Buckow in early 2017. It has been homologated and is now in use on the museum railway in a historic red and white livery.
Future extension
Future plans forsee the construction of a new link between the the Orbe-Chavornay line and the SBB mainline at Chavornay SBB by means of a new connecting curve. Power supply is to be converted to SBB’s 15 kV 16.7 Hz alternating current and through trains are to be offered from Orbe to Lausanne. Due to the fact that the ex-Karlsruhe tram-trains are already capable of 15 kV, the transition can take place smoothly. So we should not have to worry too much about the future of the railway.
You quote the standard railway gauge as being 1345mm. It is, however, 1435mm. A human typing error, but it makes a difference. Of 90mm to be precise.