Switzerland: Building a Federal Railway
Surely Switzerland, its railways and public services so excellent, was a pioneer in the building of railways?
In fact, in railway building it lagged sadly behind. The reasons were not in the geography. Switzerland emerged neutral from the Napoleonic wars in 1815, but was still in many ways a feudal, divided country. It was also, except in the great cities, poor and underdeveloped. Thinking was conservative and defensive; jealousy among cantons was acute. Moreover, railways at that time were primarily for minerals, which were not a Swiss need.
Switzerland had, however, trade. In the 1830s, livelihoods already depended on industries, textiles for example, which needed better international transport. A fifth of foodstuff needs was imported; internal distribution was very ineffective. Starvation and emigration were the reality. There were customs barriers and local tariffs at cantonal boundaries. Forwarding, by mule and wagon, was much in the hands of local “corporations.” The Post coaches existed, but at fares only the wealthy could consider.
The farsighted had tried; a Zurich-Basel railway was promoted in 1836. A serious project, it anticipated extension to Chur and from there an Alpine crossing; the Lukmanier route to Italy was long favoured against the Gotthard. Fragmented, unserious arguments (Basel-Land was only three years old and in no mood to co-operate with Basel-Stadt) prevented progress. Therefore, the first railway in Switzerland was foreign, Strasbourg-Basel, which reached St Louis (in Alsace, near the Swiss border) in 1840, and was allowed in 1844 to build to St Johann in Basel. The French station in Basel opened in December 1845. The trains entered the city by a new gate in the defensive wall, so security remained assured. Basel’s walls were demolished a decade later.
Dickens arrived here on his 1846 journey. This was before another Swiss railway existed – the Spanisch-Brötli-Bahn, 23 kilometers in length, which opened August 9, 1847 and ran between Baden and Zurich. This, often seen as the “first Swiss railway,” was a financial failure, but led to the formation of the Nordostbahn (the Northeastern Railway), soon the richest Swiss private railway, with nine percent dividends, for Zurich became the heart of a network. In 1846 a rival company, the Schweizerische Centralbahn (SCB), in Basel, brought a better strategy, connecting Germany, France and the Rhine with the south, Basel-Olten-Luzern (steamers to Flüelen for the Gotthard) and Olten-Bern, for Thun (Bernese Oberland) and French-speaking Switzerland. Again, the cantons could not agree.
The 1848 Constitution was the decisive political step in the logjam. Critical was economic unification of the Confederation, for free movement of goods and persons (just like the European Union today). It enabled strategic planning of railways for the common good, including land use. In 1850, the government accordingly invited the British engineer Robert Stephenson to plan a network. The report, completed that same year, was adopted.
Today’s main line network, north of the Alps, with the new high-speed lines, is essentially what Stephenson proposed. He saw the line from Basel to the Aare valley, i.e., Olten, as the key. Parliament passed a law in 1852 that railway concessions would be granted by cantons to private companies. New railway companies blossomed and typically merged.
The Schweizerische Centralbahn, with private capital, built the first mountain line, over the Hauenstein Pass in the Jura mountains. British contractor Thomas Brassey took the summit section with its two-and-a-half-kilometer tunnel, which opened in 1858. The line is still there, and the tunnel’s death toll – 63 workmen lost in a disastrous fire – is not forgotten. Within two years the SCB reached Bern, Biel, Thun and Luzern. Through Aarau it joined the Nordostbahn, which, virtually a monopoly, reached to the Lake of Constance.
The Vereinigte Schweizerbahnen, or United Swiss Railways, in 1856 opened lines from Rorschach to Chur, for German trade, and a route from Zurich through Uster to Sargans, all in place by 1860. Here a substantial British shareholding was involved, in the hope of controlling a later Lukmanier line and lucrative “Passage to India,” but it was not to be. The VSB remained a minor player until tourism in Graubunden opened up.
Trading and cultural sympathies in Jura and Geneva looked to Paris. The line from La Chaux-de-Fonds to Besançon was built in 1857, three years before cantonal capitol Neuchâtel could be reached. Geneva’s line to France was opened in 1858, part of the French PLM company. The Thomas Cook excursionists in 1863 took this route. Another company defended Vaudois interests, between Yverdon, Lausanne and Geneva, built by 1860, and ultimately merging into the Jura-Simplon network.
Cantonal concessions were chaotic; a new law of 1872 created some order by giving the Confederation the right to award concessions. But now a transalpine railway was pressing. Opinions favoured Lukmanier, Grimsel, Splugen, Gotthard, but with Germany and Italy not unified, an international treaty was still some way off. It came in 1870, the Gotthard was chosen, and the SCB’s Basel strategic route became dominant.
The Gotthard suffered disastrous planning and financial failures, but the Gotthardbahn, then still a private railway with German and Italian interests, was opened triumphantly in 1882, protected by international agreement. It has remained the backbone of the system for 130 years. With it we reach the end of this story, as increasing dissatisfaction over monopolies, poor service and lack of investment led to a Swiss popular vote, on February 20, 1898, that the major private railway companies should be nationalized. The Gotthardbahn was included nine years later. Swiss Federal Railways – Schweizerische Bundesbahnen – today’s SBB, were born.
But first, a tailpiece: in 1870 Prussia invaded France, occupying Alsace. Basel, bordered by Prussia, lost its gateway role from the Channel to the Bernese Oberland. British travellers were the main market. In great haste, the French Eastern railway built a new line from Belfort bypassing Prussia, to enter Switzerland at Delle/Porrentruy. The work between Porrentruy, Biel and Basel took 7 years, mainly with French capital. Bern saw this as a great opportunity; the dream of a Bernese transalpine railway again emerged. The outcome, 40 years later, was the Bern-Lötschberg-Simplon railway, the BLS, with Bern and French capital finally supporting the spectacular route through Kandersteg to Brig. The irony was that, opened just in time for World War I, the British passengers never came back as first intended. Too late to be nationalized in 1900, BLS, with its base tunnel, is a private railway to this day, now a major European transit route.
This is truly a huge subject, and I have left aside many secondary lines, battles, hopes and disappointments. I hope, however, that I have shown a strategic growth that started in chaos, and led to the SBB/CFF/FFS we know today: all-electric, clean and brisk, with fast, frequent trains and above all a tradition of loyalty between people and railways.
By Bryan Stone
Bryan Stone was a railway professional and at the end of his career was in international regulatory and competition law affairs. He is still passionate about the subject and is today, in long retirement, Swiss News editor of the journal of the “Swiss Railways Society,” the association of the many British and other lovers of Swiss railways past and present.
PIcture from Historical Museum collection, Basel
