Are Swiss railways susceptible to shutdown due to forecast bad weather?

[johncrossley]

Are Swiss railways susceptible to shutdown due to stormy weather when parallel roads are still open? It is sometimes mentioned on the domestic part of this forum that railways are too quick to shutdown the railway when bad weather is forecast, because, for example, it forces people onto the roads and gives the impression that railways are too unreliable, resulting in less rail use during good weather.

 

[matt]

I'm not sure about stormy weather in Switzerland but during the winter some roads are closed due to heavy snow but the adjacent railway stays open.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

I can't answer the direct question, but one big difference will be the susceptibility to high winds.
In the centre of the continent, Switzerland (and Austria) will rarely get winds as damaging as we do on the edge of the ocean and in the prevailing wind path.
They will get severe snow and ice events, and seasonal flooding, probably more than we do.

Line speeds in Switzerland will often be less than our main lines here, but the infrastructure will generally be more robust, built for mountain conditions.
Unlike here, there are also places where the railway is the most resilient form of transport, with roads often closed in winter.
Car rail shuttles operate on some routes to avoid the high road passes.

 

[bahnause]

Some routes may be closed in the event of strong winds or other local hazards. These are usually local danger spots. For example, the Appenzell - Wasserauen section of the Appenzell Railway is closed from time to time in autumn when the local "Laseyerwind" is announced. This reaches speeds of over 200 km/h. The Wengeneralpbahn is another example.

Other dangers such as the risk of avalanches are constantly monitored by professionals. They can also close routes if necessary.

SBB's Natural Hazards department also operates numerous automated warning systems, for example in areas where there is a risk of falling rocks or flooding. With climate change, numerous new challenges will arise, especially landslides. These challenges will cost us more than effective measures against climate change would ever have cost.

 

[nwales58]

Landslides: Switzerland (federal) has unbelievably detailed modelling of geological risks which puts anything we have at EnvAg/NRW/etc to shame (we are good at flood modelling though). Integrated with other data into a national GIS portal (so you know where not to build a house for instance) :

Swiss Geoportal

geo.admin.ch ist die Geoinformationsplattform der Schweizerischen Eidgenossenschaft. // geo.admin.ch est la plateforme de géoinformation de la Confédération suisse.

map.geo.admin.ch

I imagine SBB have even finer detail for their structures because the swiss way of thinking about natural hazards is years ahead of the UK.

 

[The exile]

Not a direct reply- but one of the (justifiable) reasons we have problems is that our winters have tended to be an unpredictable (in the long-term) mixture of a bit of everything - with short-lived extremes of any of them every now and again. That now and again seems to be getting more frequent. It is much harder to justify the budget needed to make the network resilient to major “snow events” (for example) if they occur for about 7 days every 5 or 6 years than if they dominate your winter for four months 19 years out of 20. Events of the past few weeks / months suggest that reevaluation may be necessary - but watch the bean-counters when the bids for finance come in in March 2025 after the driest, calmest winter on record.

 

[Re 4/4]

Closed due to wind, rarely if ever except mountain railways (and cable cars of course). A couple of years back there was an incident near Bern when a tram-train was blown off the rails and onto its side.

You do sometimes get lines closed due to risk of avalanche, especially when weather is too poor to send up a helicopter to check or chuck some dynamite to trigger the avalanche.

From my previous time in Switzerland I remember the day when 50cm of snow fell in Zurich, and trains kept on running, and Storm Lothar (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyclone_Lothar) with 98mph gusts in Zurich and whole forests down across the north of the country. They didn't proactively shut down the railway, but it was severely disrupted for a couple of days and I think everything was "drive on sight" during the worst parts.

 

[Steve4031]

In August of 2021, I boarded the Glacier Express in Chur. We were informed that we would be bussed for a portion of the route. It was raining. Then about 20 minutes later it was announced there would be no bus ride. I was relieved. So it is possible for something to go wrong, but not likely.

The derailment in the Gothard base tunnel is a good example of redundancy in the Swiss network. They continued to route trains on the traditional route rather than just cancel everything on the route. I am sure there were reductions and service and lengthening of schedules, but trains got over the railroad.

 

[bahnause]

The derailment in the Gothard base tunnel is a good example of redundancy in the Swiss network. They continued to route trains on the traditional route rather than just cancel everything on the route. I am sure there were reductions and service and lengthening of schedules, but trains got over the railroad.

Having staff and rolling stock in one company and being able to use these assets in a flexible way helps. No way a fragmented industry would be able to deliver anything like this in a timely manner.

 

[nwales58]

Vertical integration helps a lot.

But it’s also culture. Having worked with people, and gross generalisation, Swiss make things work, obsessively well, instinctively. Germans are obsessive too but the easy getout is ‘this is outside my training, we’ll pass it on to someone else’. French Swiss are Swiss but when in France …

 

[30907]

Having staff and rolling stock in one company and being able to use these assets in a flexible way helps. No way a fragmented industry would be able to deliver anything like this in a timely manner.

More specifically, having basically one Intercity operator gives a great deal of flexibility. Though SOB provide the Gotthard semi-fast, and there are IIRC multiple freight operators, but they still benefit from the infrastructure.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Having staff and rolling stock in one company and being able to use these assets in a flexible way helps. No way a fragmented industry would be able to deliver anything like this in a timely manner.

Is it not just analogous to diverting Avanti services via the West Midlands, though, which is often done at the drop of a hat? It's not complicated because both ways are wired with the same tech, so the same units can do it. Switzerland after all is a fairly small country - the whole thing is just analogous to a better funded and more electrified version of Northern and TPE combined with bigger hills in the gaps.

There's also that Switzerland has a strong culture of personal responsibility and isn't as into "elf and safe tea" (sorry ) and the associated "sue me culture" as the UK is. If you stick your head out of the window of a Swiss train and it gets knocked off, or you walk across the track and get clouted (not that there's many left where you can lean out, and the wider loading gauge than the UK means you'd have to lean a long way to hit anything, but hypothetically), that's your loss.

 

[bahnause]

Is it not just analogous to diverting Avanti services via the West Midlands, though, which is often done at the drop of a hat? It's not complicated because both ways are wired with the same tech, so the same units can do it.

But they can't. No doubledeckers over the old line allowed, so the whole rolling stock planning had to be updated. But most of the train staff knew the old route and the replacement rolling stock.

 

[Austriantrain]

French Swiss are Swiss but when in France …

As an aside: there is a long-standing thread in a French railway forum with French railway workers inquiring about job opportunities with SBB (CFF). The (French Swiss) CFF guys answering always emphasize „you are welcome to work with us, but we are Swiss, not French, so you will have to change your ways and cannot expect us to be like you“.

 

[Taunton]

Unlike here, there are also places where the railway is the most resilient form of transport, with roads often closed in winter.

Yes, but this discussion is about the opposite, the modern UK way, rail closed due to "weather" while parallel roads continue in use.

 

[Re 4/4]

not that there's many left where you can lean out

I recommend the RhB for that.

 

[WildNorthlands]

Yes, but this discussion is about the opposite, the modern UK way, rail closed due to "weather" while parallel roads continue in use.

Not always the case - trains tend to keep running through the Hope Valley when the Snake Pass is closed.