Swiss line closure proposals

[blackfive460]

175 regional lines SBB replaced by bus

The Federal Office of Transport plans to replace 175 lines by regional bus. Regional rail traffic should indeed be in the future cover half of the operating costs to a minimum.
...
More (in French) here.

 

[p123]

Awful news - sounds like a Swiss Beeching!

I've travelled by rail in Switzerland and it was excellent. If this really does go ahead it'll be sad to see their wonderful network butchered away.

 

[blackfive460]

Having now seen the full list, I suspect some of the 'closures' will actually service closures rather than line closures.

For example, among those listed are:

Meiringen - Interlaken Ost zb
S5 Luzern - Giswil zb

Now if those were line closures that would leave Giswil - Meiringen open which would make no sense at all especially when Zentral Bahn are just getting deliveries of brand new rack capable EMUs for Interlaken - Luzern.

Also making no sense at all is the suggestion that they can bustitute this one:

Vitznau - Rigi Staffelhöhe (- Rigi Kulm) RB

I can post the full list if anyone is interested.

 

[theblackwatch]

A full list would be interesting to see. What do you mean by a 'service closure'?

 

[blackfive460]

Service withdrawal might have been a better wording!

Here's the list as a text file.

 

[eastwestdivide]

Well doing a bit of summarising from the original, the real story is that regional rail routes should cover at least 50% of their costs, and any that don't will be asked to see if there is a way to "offer a better cost-benefit ratio"

les commanditaires de lignes ferroviaires avec une couverture des coûts en dessous de 50% devront vérifier s'il n'existe pas d'offre avec un meilleur rapport coût-bénéfice

the 175 lines quoted are those below that 50% threshold. If the plans are accepted,

les alternatives économiques d'une ligne sur deux seront examinées avant d'effectuer des investissements importants

i.e. economic alternatives for one line in two will be examined before making major investments.

So it's by no means cut and dried.

 

[Oscar]

The list is presumably a list of regional rail routes which do not cover at least 50% of their costs, not proposals for closure. Part of a rail route may not cover at least 50% of its covers but it may not make strategic sense to close it.

The article says that factors such as the amount of recent investment, use of the line by long distance / freight traffic and the state of the rolling stock will be considered when making decisions on the future of the lines.

The Swiss are certainly planning to invest in main lines and popular routes and obviously some decisions need to be made about certain secondary routes. I remember reading in magazines about consideration being given to similar closures a few years ago and imagine that if any closures take place they will only affect a limited number of routes.

 

[30907]

This is clearly a list of individual service groups - the German system is the same. At a quick glance, it includes "peak hour extras", "night services," short workings and so on, as well as a lot of rural routes. But it is startlingly extensive, including for example several lines that are Berne suburban routes - and through routes like Montreux-Zweisimmen and the Furka-Oberalp (the last has always been heavily subsidised I think)!