new Cisalpino II train, inaugural trip July 2009, Lausanne-Sion, Switzerland
Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The inaugural run of the new, ultra-sleek Cisalpino II trains that link Geneva to Milan, Italy via Lausanne, saw the high-speed train journey from Lausanne to Sion. The ride itself was easy compared to the latest problems faced by the company. Cisalpino was under threat of losing its contract with the Swiss rail company CFF early in 2009 because of breakdowns and delays.
Mise en Scene for the Montreux Jazz Festival - photo by Jared Bloch
Watching the lake vista unfold in front of us, I think, the festival setting truly is spectacular.
After getting stranded in Montreux early Tuesday morning – beware of the early morning public transport gap between 01:08 and 05:14 – I decided to try driving. The verdict?
Update 13 July Nyon, Vaud, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – A 17-year-old Swiss youth from Nyon is in critical condition following an accident at the Nyon train station shortly after midnight, early Thursday 9 July. [Ed. note, 13 July: GL has just learned that he was a 2009 graduate of La Chataigneraie, part of the International School of Geneva] He was sending friends off on the train after an evening out in Nyon when he pulled himself up to the window of one of the rail cars and held on, briefly, then slipped and fell under the train as it began to move. Both legs were severed by the train’s bogies, the right one below the hip and the left at the tibia, below the knee.
iPhone tickets for Swiss rail travel available 6 July 2009
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Swiss rail company CFF has started to sell train tickets via iPhones. The company’s mobile phone sales service was opened in February 2009, but until 6 July has worked only for phones equipped with Java. There is no supplement for tickets bought via iPhone, although users will be billed by their phone companies for downloading the ticket and other information such as train schedules. The tickets are paid for by credit card.
Lake Geneva region, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Train traffic between Geneva and Lausanne has been stopped since around 09:00 Friday morning due to problems with the power lines. 20 Minutes reports that the lines should be repaired by mid-morning but the CFF site says delays are indefinite.
Geneva-Coppet and Lausanne-Allaman trains in service
Trains are running between Geneva and Coppet as well as between Allaman and Lausanne. The rail company suggests that travelers allow an extra 120 minutes travel time for inter-city trains. CFF updates in English and map of the area affected
China is starting to build a train line Lop Nur, an area known as “the sea of death” in northwestern Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, reports Xinhua, noting that the region is rich in potassium salt, a very rare resource in China, used in fertilizers. A road to the remote area opened in 2006. China currently imports 4 million tons a year of potassium fertilizer but plans to produce 3m tons a year once the rail line is open. The area has reserves of 500m tons, worth more than 500 billion yuan.The region once held NW China’s largest lake, which “dried up in 1972 as a result of desertification and environmental degradation”.
Up to 200 Naxalites, or Maoists, have boarded a train that was going from going from Barkakana in Jharkhand to Mugalsarai in India Wednesday 22 April, taking hostage some 700-800 passengers, according to the Times of India. First Western media reports are putting the number lower, at 200-300. The hostage-taking is part of a continuing series of violent acts in the leadup to elections to the area. The Indian government says no one has been harmed.
Swis Jura, winter 2009, with heavy snow (photo: Shirley Curran)
Jura, Switzerland (24 heures, Fre)- Extreme weather over the course of winter caused 600-1,000 trees to fall along the base of the Jura mountains. Local loggers and forest services are closing off the dangerous areas and evacuating fallen trees to ensure that train lines are not at risk.
The Vaud forest service compares the damage to that of Lothar, the 1999 storm that swept across central Europe.
Flying somewhere other than France on 29 January, view from terminal 10 at Geneva airport
Switzerland (Le Temps, Fre) – France’s general strike Thursday 29 January is widespread, to the point where it appears that even Prime Minister Nicolas Sarkozy has nothing scheduled, reports Le Temps. The Swiss newspaper provides a useful list of flights and trains cancelled today due to the French strike.
Bern, Switzerland (20 Minutes, Fre) – Travel on a train in Valais or Ticino and you should not be asked by a customs officer to show your goods – a situation that will soon change. Switzerland became part of the Schengen Area 12 December, which allows travelers to enter and leave Switzerland without routine passport checks. Customs officers continue to check goods, however, and part of this work involves running checks on international trains that pass through Switzerland, a job border guards have done since 2002 inside cantons with international borders.
Bern, Switzerland (RSR, Fre) – Politicians from the Lake Geneva region failed to succeed once again in getting Parliament to back construction of a third rail line between Lausanne and Geneva.
This is the first of a series of mini-travel photo stories on Switzerland that will run for several weeks. A very special 16-year-old named Tara takes the train on Saturdays to explore the country where she has grown up. Her mother, GL editor Ellen Wallace, goes along for the ride.
Tara turned 16 in June and, like so many girls this age, she suddenly showed signs of independence, one of which was impatience with everything that had entertained her in the past. And, like many children of international families in Switzerland, she had traveled abroad more than at home, which is a shame because Switzerland is a country well worth exploring.
But Tara is quite unlike most 16-year-olds: she has several disabilities and she needs adult supervision at all times. She certainly can’t travel alone. One of her greatest joys in life is car travel but this year, the family decided, she should see Switzerland by train.
Our first outing was a short one, a 30 minute ride from Sierre in Valais, which will usually be our weekend starting point, to Brig, at the end of the Valais before it climbs to the Simplon Pass or the Goms (also known as Conches) valley. Then we would walk for an hour around town and take the train back.
Tara was thrilled by the train. Two teenagers sitting near us at first looked bothered by her presence. She doesn’t talk but she makes a lot of noise at times. She drools, which doesn’t go down at all well with other kids. But Tara was so clearly excited and happy by the train moving, then the scenery zooming by outside that pretty soon they began to laugh when she did, not unkindly.
Brig turned out to be a far more interesting town than I expected. I’ve known it as a jumping-off point for skiers going to Zermatt or Saas Fee, or for visits to the nearby Aletsch Glacier. But it was also at one end of the first modern road built over the Alps, by Napolean. It is at the foot of the Simplon pass, which gives it a colourful history linked to smuggling as well as legal trade over the centuries.
It has several architectural gems. The 17th century Stockalper chateau was home to a trader made rich by salt, silk and other wares carried over the Simplon mule route. The old town has dozens of patrician homes that speak of the wealth on this ancient trade route.
Tara and I found a quiet bakery where a young woman decided to try her English on us. We bought an apricot tart because it was the only thing she could say clearly and I thought we should encourage her. I had a very good cup of coffee, but before I could drink half of it Tara decided to leave. She is a girl of little patience and when it is time to go, we go.
It took us 30 minutes to walk up the hill to the top of this small town. I thought the return would be faster, but Tara was miserable when we headed downhill, and she refused to walk. The sight of a nearly grown girl sitting in the middle of the road is uncommon. This is a friendly town – several people stopped to ask if they could help. I thought this was a complaint from Tara that we had walked too far, but when we arrived home I learned the real reason. She walks on her toes much of the time, which wears holes in the tips of her shoes (she goes through a pair every six weeks or so) and sometimes her socks. We hadn’t noticed the socks were going but by the time we’d walked around Brig the holes had grown large enough for toes to poke through and hurt.
It’s times like this that I wish very much Tara could talk and say, “My socks have holes!” The good thing about Tara’s unhappiness is that it flies away as quickly as it comes. A train ride back to Sierre solved the problem in seconds.
And then I had my first lesson on train travel with Tara in Switzerland. She loved it, to the point where she refused to get off the train. Swiss trains don’t stop for long between stations. You have to be at the door, ready to leap off.
Fortunately, for travelers like Tara, Swiss trains have very helpful conductors.
Tip for disabled travelers in Switzerland - avoid peak travel times because the crush can make it hard to make connections.
Coming next: to Bern in late November
The CFF has several tickets for events plus train. The page functions in French and German, and you can search by city: just change the name of the city at the top, but remember it doesn’t recognize English!
Title: Ride a steam engine train
Location: Lausanne, Vaud
Link out: Click here
Description: Conmemorate 150 years of history by going to Lausanne or Geneva in a steam-engine train.
Date: 16 Nov 2008
Renens, Vaud, Switzerland (TSR, Fre) – Several hundred train travellers were affected Tuesday morning by a wire that came off the line in Renens, a key turntable in the rail system that links Geneva, Morges and Lausanne. Some people were delayed for as much as an hour and buses replaced trains between Morges and Lausanne.
