The small green locomotive is back

Hello,
the Schoema has been re-gauged to standard gauge in order to be used on some of the many sidings of the Gotthardbahn. Since Schoema built the same engines also to standard gauge dimensions, its still quite prototypical despite the quick conversion!

Never mind the textures, they still need to be reworked.

Track reaches Altdorf

Besides working on the heights between Brunnen and Sisikon, which had to be edited in afterwards due to the split up of the line, the track has been expaned to Altdorf, the capital of canton Uri.



Also the track layout of Flüelen Station has been created, including the siding of gravel and concrete plant Arnold & Co AG in the harbour of Flüelen.
Here some of the excavated material of the new Gotthard Base Tunnel was loaded onto ships in order to pour it into the lake and consequently creating a number of artificial islands around Flüelen for bathing as well as nature protection purposes.

To celebrate the islands they were illuminated in 2003, which made for a spectacular sight

Track Reaches Flüelen

The first tunnels have been dug on the section between Brunnen, Sisikon and Flüelen.

This is a very peculiar part of the Gotthard line because here the track is divided between a so called seegleis, which curls along the extremely steep shore of the urnersee part of the vierwaldstättersee and the so called berggleis, which goes straight through the mountains for the most part. While the Berggleis only goes through 4 tunnels, the older Seegleis goes through 9 tunnels of varying length in only 10 kilometres.

The track splits up here because there was not ernough space left along the shore of the urnersee for the double track expansion, which was undertaken about 60 years after the initial opening of the Gotthard line.
However, both tracks meet shortly at the village of Sisikon, where the Gotthard line also enters Uri, the oldest canton of Switzerland.

The air is full of history here. Directly under the Seegleis track one can make out the Tells-Chapel right on the lake, devoted to the mythical swiss national hero Wilhelm Tell who is said to have jumped ashore from a ship here. Then, on the other side of the lake the Rütli meadow is visible, where the Swiss Eidgenosschenschaft was founded according to the myth of the Rütlischwur.

Track laid in Schwyz and Brunnen

I didn't quite think it would be that much work, but even the smallest swiss villages have a substantial amount of sidings which allow for more shunting and local freight than i expected from the alpine transit line.


Here are the finished track layouts of Schwyz and Brunnen stations:

Gotthardbahn - Progress Bar

Hello,

the semester is over finally and work continues on the RailWorks Gotthardbahn. As this progress graph shows, track has been laid from Arth-Goldau towards Brunnen via Steinen and Schwyz.



After finishing the complicated switchwork in those stations, which will be laid out according to the latest photos and aerial imagery available, the first tunnels will have to be built on the spectacular section between Brunnen and Flüelen.