In this tri­bu­te, you will learn how rail freight trans­port in Switz­er­land is moving per­sis­t­ent­ly towards the future. For many years, inno­va­ti­on was a for­eign word for the «brown wagons». But this era is passé. The freight rail­ways are ready for the age of 4.0 and their place on the rails. This is indis­pensable for secu­ri­ty of sup­p­ly, envi­ron­men­tal­ly fri­end­ly trans­port per­for­mance and reli­e­ved roads.

That’s what it’s all about:

  • Con­ti­nuous­ly on the rise for 175 years
  • Pro­vi­des over a third of the trans­port ser­vices in and through Switzerland
  • Loo­king back at past cri­ses and successes
  • A cen­tu­ry ahead in electrification

The trans­port per­for­mance of rail freight in Switz­er­land has under­go­ne an impres­si­ve deve­lo­p­ment since the begin­ning of the 20th cen­tu­ry. Accor­ding to the Fede­ral Sta­tis­ti­cal Office (FSO), it total­led about 1.5 bil­li­on tonne-kilo­me­t­res in 1900. Since then, rail has been mark­ed by many cri­ses, some of them far away. Today it accounts for 10.4 bil­li­on tonne-kilo­me­t­res. tonne-kilo­me­t­res and a 37% share[1] of the modal split, it is an important pil­lar of the Swiss trans­port sys­tem. But let’s take it one step at a time.

Small country, big performance – still a lot of potential

The trans­port per­for­mance of rail freight has fluc­tua­ted over the deca­des (cf. Figu­re 1). Since the end of the pan­de­mic, it has been rising ste­adi­ly again. In tran­sal­pi­ne freight trans­port (tran­sit), there is a trans­fer obli­ga­ti­on based on the artic­le on the pro­tec­tion of the Alps in the Fede­ral Con­sti­tu­ti­on. As a result of the con­s­truc­tion of the NRLA, the four-metre cor­ri­dor and unpre­ce­den­ted finan­cial sup­port for unac­com­pa­nied com­bi­ned trans­port (UCT), Switz­er­land had a very high modal split in favour of rail in tran­sal­pi­ne trans­port in 2021, at 74%; the trans­port per­for­mance of rail freight trans­port was a peak value com­pared to other count­ries, at 66% of tran­sit traf­fic. The over­all modal split of 37% rail was also above the inter­na­tio­nal level.

In non-tran­sit traf­fic, there is no modal shift man­da­te. Enorm­ous poten­ti­al lies dor­mant in dome­stic trans­port (2021: 23%), imports (7.5%) and exports (3.5%[2]), pro­vi­ded that the fun­da­men­tal moder­ni­sa­ti­on and reor­ga­ni­sa­ti­on of wagon­load trans­port and the pro­mo­ti­on of intra­mo­dal com­pe­ti­ti­on are imple­men­ted[3]. This includes the auto­ma­ti­on and digi­ta­li­sa­ti­on of the rail sys­tem. These put wagon­load traf­fic in the fast lane and make rail fit for inter­mo­dal com­pe­ti­ti­on and mul­ti­mo­dal logi­stics chains. Suf­fi­ci­ent­ly available infra­struc­tu­re for the freight rail­ways and more con­ve­ni­ent­ly loca­ted logi­stics sites fur­ther acce­le­ra­te this pro­gress[4].

Switzerland’s trans­port and infra­struc­tu­re poli­cy should the­r­e­fo­re incre­asing­ly focus on the cus­to­mer bene­fits of rail as a mode of trans­port for the ship­ping indus­try. The more bene­fits the Swiss rail freight trans­port sys­tem brings to ship­pers, the more it will be used – in other words, the more traf­fic will be shifted. We at the VAP reject an expli­cit shift of traffic.

Figu­re 1: Swiss rail freight trans­port per­for­mance since 1900 (click on the image to enlarge)

Uphill and downhill journey with a clear gain in altitude

On 7 August 1847, the first rail­way line enti­re­ly on Swiss soil from Zurich to Baden – popu­lar­ly known as the «Spa­nish-Bröt­li-Bahn»[5] (cf. Figu­re 2) – was cere­mo­nious­ly ope­ned. One of the reasons for the con­s­truc­tion of this line: the lords of Zurich had their mes­sen­gers bring them the puff pastry «Spa­nisch Bröt­li» – main­ly on Sun­days – from a well-known mas­ter baker in Baden. The poor ser­vants always had to make their way to Baden on foot short­ly after mid­night so that they could put fresh rolls on the Sun­day break­fast table. The «Spa­nish-Bröt­li-Bahn» made it pos­si­ble to trans­port goods and peo­p­le quick­ly and relia­bly.[6]

 

Figu­re 2: With the “Spa­nisch-Bröt­li-Bahn”, Switz­er­land gets its first natio­nal rail­way line.

 

The first rail­ways in Switz­er­land were built on pri­va­te initia­ti­ve. They were able to start ope­ra­ting with a con­ces­si­on from the can­tons they ser­ved. Initi­al­ly, the Con­fe­de­ra­ti­on only spe­ci­fied the tech­ni­cal aspects. Later, the Con­fe­de­ra­ti­on was given more powers to ensu­re a sen­si­ble natio­nal network.

In 1857, a rail­way mail coach was used for the first time in Switz­er­land by the Schwei­ze­ri­sche Nord­ost­bahn on the Zurich-Baden-Brugg line. This was the begin­ning of Swiss rail­way mail. In 1859, the route net­work alre­a­dy had a length of more than 1000 km, there was a con­ti­nuous con­nec­tion from Lake Con­s­tance to Gen­e­va, to which Bern, Lucer­ne, Chur, St. Gal­len, Schaff­hau­sen and Basel were also con­nec­ted. In 1882, after the com­ple­ti­on of the 15-km-long sum­mit tun­nel, the Gott­hard rail­way was able to begin operations.

In 1875, the first law for the con­s­truc­tion and ope­ra­ti­on of indus­tri­al sidings was intro­du­ced in Switz­er­land, thus legal­ly regu­la­ting the legal rela­ti­onships for sidings. The refe­ren­dum of 20 Febru­ary 1898 mark­ed the end of the pri­va­te rail­way age, and from 1902 the newly foun­ded state rail­way SBB took over the lar­gest rail­way com­pa­nies as well as smal­ler pri­va­te rail­ways. With natio­na­li­sa­ti­on, respon­si­bi­li­ty for the fur­ther deve­lo­p­ment of the rail­ways pas­sed to the fede­ral govern­ment. The take­over of the infra­struc­tu­re by the SBB was a good step. Howe­ver, ope­ra­ti­on on the net­work was to be cha­rac­te­ri­sed by competition.

With the mono­po­li­sa­ti­on of rail trans­port, it was time in 1912 to estab­lish a repre­sen­ta­ti­ve for the pri­va­te play­ers. This was the birth of the VAP Ver­band Schwei­ze­ri­scher Anschluss­glei­se- und Pri­vat­gü­ter­wa­gen­be­sit­zer – today’s VAP Ver­band der ver­la­den­den Wirt­schaft – which from then on cam­pai­gned for fair com­pe­ti­ti­on and the opti­mi­sa­ti­on of eco­no­mic poli­cy con­di­ti­ons, rail infra­struc­tu­re and logi­stics loca­ti­ons. At that time, rail made a decisi­ve con­tri­bu­ti­on to the indus­tri­al revo­lu­ti­on – the pro­fi­ta­ble con­nec­tion soon over­took ship and horse-drawn car­ria­ge as the infra­struc­tu­re grew. Fast trans­port within Switz­er­land, but also to Euro­pe, ope­ned up new eco­no­mic opportunities.

During the First World War, the trans­port per­for­mance of rail freight first rose, befo­re decli­ning by 18% in 1917 and 14% in 1918. These decli­nes can be attri­bu­ted to the inter­rup­ti­ons in pro­duc­tion and trade as well as the effects of the Spa­nish flu. The pan­de­mic at that time affec­ted about half of the Swiss popu­la­ti­on in two waves and clai­med almost 25,000 lives bet­ween July 1918 and June 1919. Trans­port per­for­mance reco­ver­ed in the 1920s befo­re plum­me­ting again in the year of the eco­no­mic cri­sis in 1921 and with the New York stock mar­ket crash of Octo­ber 1929.

With the begin­ning of the Second World War, the freight rail­way began an ups­wing, which it owed to the arma­ment eco­no­my and poli­ti­cal decis­i­ons[7]. Dome­stic traf­fic increased, as the now lar­ge­ly elec­tri­fied rail­way repla­ced car and truck traf­fic, which had been lar­ge­ly para­ly­sed due to a lack of fuel. During the Second World War, the trans­port per­for­mance of the rail­ways decli­ned mas­si­ve­ly until freight tran­sit traf­fic almost com­ple­te­ly col­lap­sed at the end of the war and the trans­port per­for­mance lost 42% overall.

After the Second World War, the eco­no­my reco­ver­ed and with it the trans­port per­for­mance of the rail­ways. It rea­ched a first record level in the 1970s. This was fol­lo­wed by sharp decli­nes due to the oil price cri­sis, the 1987 stock mar­ket crash, the real estate cri­sis and the sub­se­quent reces­si­on of the 1990s. In 1999, Switz­er­land laun­ched the first of seve­ral steps of the so-cal­led rail­way reform in the con­text of the Euro­pean mar­ket ope­ning for UCT and based on EC Direc­ti­ve 91/440/EEC[8]. The aim: to make the Swiss rail­way sys­tem more effi­ci­ent and customer-friendly.

The new rail­way sidings law of 5 Octo­ber 1990 and the ordi­nan­ce of 26 Febru­ary 1992 are inten­ded to give new impe­tus to the pro­mo­ti­on of rail freight trans­port and to help solve the num­e­rous pro­blems facing freight trans­port in a future-ori­en­ted manner.

In the year 2000, rail freight trans­port per­for­mance was five times grea­ter than in 1950 (+397%). This mul­ti­ple is all the more impres­si­ve given that the share of rail in total freight trans­port decli­ned mas­si­ve­ly in favour of road trans­port pre­cis­e­ly in those years. For despi­te the expe­ri­ence of fuel shorta­ges during the Second World War, the tran­si­ti­on to a petro­le­um-based eco­no­my took place after the end of the war.

The New Rail Link through the Alps (NRLA) brought a fur­ther boost. With three base tun­nels through the Alps and the expan­si­on of the access rou­tes, it brought the north and south of Switz­er­land and Euro­pe clo­ser tog­e­ther. The Lötsch­berg base tun­nel has been in ope­ra­ti­on since 2007. The Gott­hard Base Tun­nel was ope­ned in 2016. In 2020, the NRLA was com­ple­ted with the com­mis­sio­ning of the Ceneri Base Tunnel.

Mood 2008–2012

To help you feel the pulse of the times, we have sum­ma­ri­sed for you the con­tents of spee­ches given at our AGMs in 2008, 2010 and 2012:

2008: VAP Gene­ral Assem­bly, Pre­si­dent Franz Steinegger’s pre­si­den­ti­al address

Swiss trans­port poli­cy in rail freight trans­port is cha­rac­te­ri­sed by con­tra­dic­tions. On the one hand, mil­li­ons of Swiss francs are inves­ted in tran­sit traf­fic bet­ween Ger­ma­ny and Italy, when this is hand­led as com­bi­ned trans­port or as a rol­ling road. On the other hand, in dome­stic traf­fic, pas­sen­ger traf­fic is sub­si­di­sed via a mis­gui­ded train-path price regu­la­ti­on and rail freight traf­fic is dis­ad­van­ta­ged. Moreo­ver, ship­pers in Switz­er­land will only recei­ve a flat-rate refund of the HVF if they bring their goods to the rail­way in a con­tai­ner, which fur­ther sub­si­di­ses tran­sit traf­fic. The Asso­cia­ti­on of Swiss Ship­pers (VAP) calls for a com­pre­hen­si­ve modal shift poli­cy that also takes eco­lo­gi­cal cri­te­ria into account. To this end, train path pri­ces, access prio­ri­ties, rail capa­ci­ties, the appli­ca­ti­on of the pol­lu­ter-pays prin­ci­ple in route rene­wals and a needs-based assess­ment of wagon­load traf­fic must be impro­ved. It is also stres­sed that the needs of freight trans­port should not be unde­re­sti­ma­ted in the future deve­lo­p­ment of rail projects.

2010: VAP Gene­ral Assem­bly, Speech by Moritz Leuenberger

Freight traf­fic, which is respon­si­ble for the trans­port of goods, is often over­loo­ked by many peo­p­le. While most do not care about the ori­gin and histo­ry of goods, they are often not infor­med about how trans­port and logi­stics are car­ri­ed out. The text shows that freight trans­port by rail is dis­ad­van­ta­ged com­pared to pas­sen­ger trans­port and often recei­ves too litt­le poli­ti­cal sup­port. Public funds are beco­ming scar­cer, while freight trans­port is incre­asing expo­nen­ti­al­ly on both road and rail. Leu­en­ber­ger sug­gests that the order of prio­ri­ties on the rail net­work must be recon­side­red in order to streng­then freight trans­port. The fede­ral govern­ment has alre­a­dy taken mea­su­res to sup­port freight trans­port, inclu­ding ZEB and Bahn2030, he said.

2012: VAP Gene­ral Assem­bly, Speech by Franz Stein­eg­ger, Pre­si­dent VAP

The Pre­si­dent looks back on a long care­er in trans­port poli­cy and recalls dis­cus­sions on various pro­jects such as Rail 2000, the Ver­ei­na Tun­nel, the Neat and the Alpi­ne pro­tec­tion artic­le. He notes that the growth of pas­sen­ger and freight trans­port will increase by 60% by 2030 and that infra­struc­tu­re must fol­low the incre­asing demand for mobi­li­ty. Howe­ver, there are finan­cial and envi­ron­men­tal limits, and there is the ques­ti­on of whe­ther the neces­sa­ry infra­struc­tu­re sup­p­ly can be pro­vi­ded. The aut­hor cri­ti­ci­s­es that poli­ti­ci­ans and asso­cia­ti­ons pre­fer to deal with means of con­trol and prio­ri­ties of use for exis­ting infra­struc­tures ins­tead of loo­king at the future. In the case of the rail­ways, there are plans such as Rail 2030 and a Stra­te­gic Rail Infra­struc­tu­re Deve­lo­p­ment Pro­gram­me (STEP) with invest­ments of CHF 42 bil­li­on. The roads also have finan­cing pro­po­sals. Switz­er­land invests the most per capi­ta in the rail­way net­work in Europe.

From the com­me­mo­ra­ti­ve paper:

The fede­ral law and the Berne Con­ven­ti­on have pro­mo­ted rail freight in natio­nal and inter­na­tio­nal trans­port. Howe­ver, rail freight trans­port is in fier­ce com­pe­ti­ti­on with road freight and pas­sen­ger trans­port, which is incre­asing­ly wea­k­e­ning the com­pe­ti­ti­ve­ness of rail freight trans­port. Swiss trans­port poli­cy aims to shift freight trans­port from road to rail, which requi­res a well-deve­lo­ped infra­struc­tu­re and fair net­work access con­di­ti­ons. To remain com­pe­ti­ti­ve, intra­mo­dal com­pe­ti­ti­on and state incen­ti­ves are also nee­ded, as well as a cri­ti­cal ana­ly­sis of the orga­ni­sa­ti­on of the rail­way infra­struc­tu­re and rail­way com­pa­nies. The VAP sees it as a chall­enge and an obli­ga­ti­on to balan­ce the modal shift dis­cus­sion in the inte­rest of Switz­er­land as a busi­ness loca­ti­on and a place to live.

 

The ter­ro­rist attacks in the USA in 2001 were fol­lo­wed by a 4% decli­ne. After the finan­cial cri­sis of 2008 trig­ge­red by the burs­t­ing of the US real estate bubble, trans­port per­for­mance fell by 14% in 2009. In the eco­no­mic cri­sis in 2012 fol­lo­wing the intro­duc­tion of the mini­mum euro exch­an­ge rate, there was again a decli­ne of 4%. The clo­sure of the Rhine Val­ley rail­way (water ingress in the Ras­tatt Tun­nel) resul­ted in a decrease of 6% in 2017. Com­pa­ra­ble to this is the 5% decrease in rail freight trans­port in the Coro­na pan­de­mic year 2020. In 2021, rail freight trans­port increased again by 6.2% (10.4 bil­li­on tonne-kilometres).

Electrification: a century ahead

In the early days, rail­ways ran on coal. In 1888, the first elec­tri­cal­ly powered rail­way rol­led out in Switz­er­land with the Vevey-Mon­treux-Chil­lon (VMC) tram­way. Other nar­row-gauge rail­ways fol­lo­wed step by step. In 1901, at the gene­ral mee­ting of the Swiss Elec­tro­tech­ni­cal Asso­cia­ti­on, it was pro­po­sed that the elec­tri­fi­ca­ti­on of stan­dard-gauge rail­ways should also be examined.

Figu­re 3: In 1888, Switzerland’s first elec­tri­cal­ly ope­ra­ted rail­way rol­led out with the Vevey-Mon­treux-Chil­lon tram­way. © Lau­rent Croset

Accor­ding to the later Study Com­mis­si­on for Elec­tric Rail­way Ope­ra­ti­on, the initia­tor was “main­ly gui­ded by the need to make our coun­try less depen­dent on the coal-pro­du­cing count­ries and to open up a new field of work for the Swiss elec­tro­tech­ni­cal indus­try”. In its 1912 report to the SBB gene­ral manage­ment, the study com­mis­si­on its­elf empha­sis­ed “the uti­li­sa­ti­on of natio­nal water power ins­tead of for­eign coal” as the main moti­ve “and, if pos­si­ble, a reduc­tion in the cost of ope­ra­ti­on”. As early as 1906 and 1913, the various sec­tions of the Lötsch­berg-Sim­plon axis were elec­tri­fied and put into operation.

The coal shorta­ge during the First World War drove the elec­tri­fi­ca­ti­on of the rail­way for­ward. In 1920 the Gott­hard rail­way went into elec­tric ope­ra­ti­on and by 1928 more than half of the SBB lines had been elec­tri­fied. Alre­a­dy in the inter­war peri­od, Switz­er­land took a lea­ding role in elec­tri­fi­ca­ti­on on an inter­na­tio­nal scale. For mili­ta­ry reasons, a fur­ther wave of elec­tri­fi­ca­ti­on took place during the Second World War. In an extre­me­ly short time, ano­ther large part of the net­work was elec­tri­fied. This was con­tin­ued after the end of the war to pre­vent unemployment.

From today’s per­spec­ti­ve, elec­tri­fi­ca­ti­on was a good decis­i­on for cli­ma­te pro­tec­tion, even if this argu­ment did not play a role at the time. Today, cli­ma­te pro­tec­tion is the main dri­ver for modal shift and elec­tri­fi­ca­ti­on of trans­port. Com­pared to road trans­port, rail has about a century’s head start here.


[1] Cf. FOT: Freight transport

[2] Cf. FOT Goods trans­port by rail

[3] Cf. blog artic­le «Impro­ve­ment of freight trans­port: it is high time to do some­thing»

[4] Cf. blog artic­le «Out­sour­cing the last mile and making it non-dis­cri­mi­na­to­ry»

[5] Cf. «The Spa­nish Rolls Rail­way», Peter Affolter

[6] The term «Baden­fahrt» covers two his­to­ric events. On the one hand, the first Swiss train jour­ney from Zurich to Baden and, on the other, the legen­da­ry folk fes­ti­val. The lat­ter cele­bra­tes its 100th anni­ver­sa­ry this year from 18 to 27 August 2023. (badenfahrt.ch)

[7] It would be ques­tionable whe­ther these decis­i­ons are com­pa­ti­ble with the pre­ser­va­ti­on of Swiss neu­tra­li­ty. Howe­ver, we will not go into this fur­ther in this article.

[8] Cf. EC Direc­ti­ve 91/440/EEC on the deve­lo­p­ment of the Community’s railways

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