Backing Up to Her Train

Backing Up to Her Train

The crossing gate is in place, as this B-L-S Lötschbergbahn Re-425 electric locomotive backs up to couple on to her train on this early October afternoon in 1988 at Interlaken-Ost station in Switzerland’s Jungfrau-Region.

Just beyond the road crossing, the SBB (Swiss Federal Railways) train will rumble across a bridge (*) over the Aare River, then run along it to Interlaken West station before heading on toward Bern and, possibly, points beyond. At Spiez, it will begin to follow the shoreline of the Thunersee (Lake Thun).

It may be an SBB train, but the railroad on which it will run, at least as far as the major junction point of Spiez, is most definitely the Lötschbergbahn, hence the brown locomotive, then common for such trains.

If you are familiar with present day Swiss mainline railroad equipment, the green SBB day coach may strike you as drab and rather ordinary. However, on the inside, carriages of this type were comfortable and Swiss-typically clean; but the real treat for a photographer on his first visit to the Swiss Alps was the large pull-down windows, allowing Alpine-fresh air and unobstructed views with the cameras of the approaching grandeur of the Jungfrau-Region.

Shortly before this photo was taken, I had arrived on just such a train, possibly pulled by this same locomotive, at this fascinating station, where the standard gauge mainline terminates but meets a variety of narrow gauge lines that meander into the nearby mountain valleys or along the Brienzersee (Lake Brienz) to Luzern.

From a Kodachrome-25 transparency.

© Steve Ember

(*) On the other side of the bridge, 23 years later, her class is still hauling trains out of Interlaken.