Saint-Gingolph–Saint-Maurice railway

The Saint-Gingolph–Saint-Maurice railway is a single-track railway in Switzerland. It was opened on 14 July 1859 by the Ligne d’Italie. It connects Le Bouveret on Lake Geneva with Saint-Maurice. The line to the French–Swiss border near Saint-Gingolph was opened together with its continuation towards Évian-les-Bains on 1 June 1886. The line together with the French line to Évian is sometimes called the Tonkin Line, because construction workers saw similarities in the geological conditions to Indochina. It was the first railway line in the canton of Valais. A 691 metre-long tunnel had to be built on the approach to Saint-Maurice which is the only major structure of the line (the tunnel was shortened to 490 metres during an upgrade of the Simplon Railway to double track in 1906).

Saint-Gingolph–Saint-Maurice
Domino set between Les Paluds and Massongex
Overview
Owner	SBB
Line number	130
Termini	Saint-Gingolph Saint-Maurice
Technical
Line length	26.75 km (16.62 mi)
Number of tracks	1
Track gauge	1,435 mm (4 ft 8+1⁄2 in) standard gauge
Electrification	15 kV/16.7 Hz AC overhead catenary
Maximum incline	1.5%
Route map km elev SNCF line to Évian-les-Bains France Switzerland 26.80 St-Gingolph (Suisse) 22.91 Bouveret 19.53 Les Evouettes 16.25 Vouvry 13.39 Vionnaz metre gauge line of the TPC to Monthey–Champéry 7.90 Collombey metre gauge line of the TPC from Aigle–Ollon Monthey-En Place Monthey (Ville) 6.05 Monthey (SBB) 3.20 Massongex 1.18 50.11 Les Paluds from Bex and Lausanne Saint-Maurice Tunnel (490 m) St-Maurice 421.5 m to Domodossola Source: Swiss railway atlas

History

As early as 1852, a concession was sought for a line from Villeneuve to Aosta. Among other things, this did not proceed because the canton of Valais required two connecting lines, one between Martigny and Sion and one between Illersaz and Le Bouveret. An application submitted a year later for a line from Le Bouveret to Sion, however, was successful and received a federal concession. The line was planned as an international through route, but never operated in this manner. This was partly because its continuation, the Saint-Gingolph–Évian railway, was opened in 1886 and thus after the opening of the Lausanne–Brig line. The section of the line in France was built by the Compagnie des chemins de fer de Paris à Lyon et à la Méditerranée (PLM). Passenger operations between Évian-les-Bains and Saint-Gingolph were closed in 1937. Freight on the line gained momentum during the Second World War, when it was the only line crossing into Switzerland that was not directly under the control of the Axis powers. Then it returned to insignificance, so that in 1988 all traffic ended on the French side. Since then, traffic has only run towards Saint-Maurice. The line between Saint-Maurice and Collombey was electrified in 1946 and the rest of the line to Saint-Gingolph in 1954.

Operations

Passenger traffic is limited to hourly regional trains operated by RegionAlps. These have increased in frequency, after it was one of the few lines in Switzerland where services had been reduced to a two-hour frequency in the 1990s. The regional services now continue beyond Saint-Maurice to Brig.

Various sidings in Monthey and Collombey serve daily freight traffic towards Saint-Maurice. In addition to the sidings (Losinger, Givo., CABV, AGIP), only Monthey station is open on the basic network for single wagonload traffic. Although Bouveret is still open as an operating point for freight traffic, it is currently used very rarely. Therefore, there is no daily freight traffic between Saint-Gingolph and Monthey.

References

Sources

• Broennle, Marcel; Lambercy, Xavier (August 2009). "Le 150^e anniversaire de la ligne du Tonkin". Eisenbahn Amateur (in German). ISSN 0013-2764.