Visp

Visp

Perhaps there’s a nice “balance” of sorts that the mouthful-sized Schweizerische Bundesbahnen (SBB/CFF/FFS), the Bern-Lötschberg-Simplon (BLS), and Matterhorn Gotthard Bahn (MGB) railways all come together at a station with the diet-serving sized name of Visp…

For a station with such a “modest” name, there is a lot of action to please the train lover, for it is here that the narrow gauge trains of the MGB veer off from their parallel course with the standard gauge mainline of the SBB to begin their rack and pinion climb to the Alpine center of Zermatt. Indeed, this section of the MGB was once the Brig-Visp-Zermatt (BVZ) Railway.

Once a rather modest transfer point between the SBB and the BVZ, since the opening of the Lötschberg-Base Tunnel, Visp has taken on far greater significance as a rail junction for the SBB mainline and the high speed BLS line (through the mountain) to Bern and beyond.

The train just behind the rank of baggage carts belongs to the MGB. It has just arrived from Zermatt.

On this “Sentimental Journey” in October 2011, I have re-traced a portion of my first two visits to Switzerland, in 1988 and ’89, by riding the Glacier Express on the MGB from Disentis/Mustér to Zermatt. Then, after three delightful days and nights at 10,000 feet on the Gornergrat, it was an MGB shuttle train from Zermatt down to Visp, where I’d change to a super-smooth SBB double-deck Intercity Express (powered by my favorite “red racer,” the Re-460) for the trip “inside” the Lötschberg up to Spiez, there to change for – and re-live – the scenic trip along Lake Thun to Interlaken-Ost, first experienced on that first visit in ’88, and another “sentimental” return to the Hotel du Lac, finding it as charming as when first experienced, by sheer serendipity, in 1988.

Photo, Narrative, and Layout ©2011/2012 Steve Ember


http://www.dulac-interlaken.ch

And my favorite "Red Racer," the Pininfarina styled Re-460