GoldenPass Express

The GoldenPass Express links Montreux, on Lake Geneva, to Interlaken in the Bernese Oberland. The train leaves the lake and climbs into the Bernese Alps against a gradient of 23 ‰ as far as Montbovon, the first intermediate stop, 22.1 kilometres and 48 minutes from Montreux. From there it follows the Sarine through Château-d'Œx and Gstaad, on gradients reaching 30 ‰, passes above 1,260 metres near Saanenmöser and reaches Zweisimmen after 62.4 kilometres and two hours and four minutes. What follows is flat: 34.9 kilometres and 44 minutes through the Simmental to Spiez, then the shore of Lake Thun to Interlaken Ost.

Zweisimmen is where everything happens. Up to that point the train runs on the metre-gauge line of the Montreux–Oberland bernois; beyond it, on the standard-gauge line of the BLS. The operation is automated and nobody has to get off: the wheels move from 1,000 to 1,435 millimetres apart, and the body adjusts in height because the platforms differ on either side — 300 millimetres on one, 560 on the other. The encyclopedia describes this double adjustment, gauge and height together, as a world first; it is at any rate the reason the train exists.

The GoldenPass Express is jointly owned by the Montreux–Oberland bernois and the BLS, and looks the same from end to end although its traction changes twice: an MOB locomotive on the metre-gauge section, a BLS locomotive between Zweisimmen and Interlaken Ost. For all its multiple-unit appearance, it is made up entirely of hauled stock. At Interlaken Ost the connection continues towards Lucerne.

Why this place is remarkable

For more than a century the journey between Lake Geneva and the Oberland stopped at Zweisimmen: two networks, two gauges, a suitcase to carry from one platform to the other. The solution was long sought in the track — a third rail, abandoned in 2006 for want of room and money at Spiez. It came in the end from the vehicle: a variable-gauge bogie, developed by Alstom under the name EV18, which sets the position of the wheels and the height of the body on the move. The GoldenPass Express is that shift of the problem, made visible in a one-minute stop.

History and origin

The idea of linking Lake Geneva, Gstaad and the lakes of Thun and Brienz goes back to 1873; the aim then was to draw three economic centres together and open up the mountains. The lines were built to different gauges, and the plan for a through service kept returning: in the 1930s a third rail was considered, and finally abandoned in 2006, since fitting both gauges into Spiez station would have required a prohibitively expensive underground structure. In 2008 the MOB changed tack and adapted the rolling stock rather than the infrastructure; Alstom developed the EV18 bogie, more complex and heavier than an ordinary one. The first commercial run took place on 11 December 2022. The investment budget came to 89 million francs, including 23 carriages and 58 bogies. The service, at first a single return trip a day, went to four on 10 June 2023.