The new Gurtenbahn Bern AG carriages have been delivered from our halls in Langenthal to Bern and placed on the track. The final fine-tuning and tests will now be carried out before the opening on 16 May, when the railway reopens to visitors to the Gurten.
It’s great to be part of this local project and to be able to continue writing the success story of Bern’s local mountain together with Garaventa AG, Sisag AG and Gurtenbahn Bern AG! See you soon on the Gurten!
Just in time for its 125th anniversary in 2024, the existing funicular railway on Bern’s local mountain is getting a complete overhaul. This includes the railway line, the stations and the carriages, which will be built to meet today’s requirements. The new modern panoramic carriages for the Gurtenbahn will be supplied by Calag Gangloff from Langenthal.
The existing carriages from 1999 were already made by Gangloff. This and the geographical proximity to the Gurten make the project a kind of home game for Calag Carrosserie Langenthal AG, which is based in the canton of Bern. “Of course, we at Calag Gangloff are proud to be able to build the new carriages for the Gurtenbahn here in Langenthal,” says Michael Reinhard, Head of Marketing at Calag.
The innovations at Gurten are intended to make access to the Gurten Park in the countryside even easier for all visitor groups. In order to achieve this and to meet the increased requirements in terms of comfort and accessibility, the cabins offer a number of new features compared to the current carriages.
The new carriages are being built by Calag Gangloff. The work on the entire railway system at Gurten is being carried out by Garaventa AG, with Hili Manz GmbH as general planner, which also developed the vehicle concept and design in collaboration with Gurtenbahn AG during the initial planning phase.
The capacity of the new carriages remains at 120 people per journey. However, in order to cater for the different groups of visitors on the Gurten, the carriages now have compartments of different sizes. The existing panoramic compartment will be optimised for barrier-free travel with pushchairs, mobile aids and wheelchairs thanks to a new layout and level access. In future, the view of Bern’s old town will no longer only be possible from the panoramic compartment, but will be available to all passengers thanks to large panoramic windows. The journey out of the city will therefore be an experience for all passengers, regardless of their compartment.
Mountain bikers who use the Gurten Bahn as a taxi for the local downhill route will also be catered for. They have a separate entrance to the station. The car compartments for transporting bikes will be given an additional protective coating on the inside to protect the floor and cabin from scratches.
The new coaches also offer more comfort during hot summer periods. To ensure a pleasant travelling temperature despite the panoramic glazing, the roof has hatches that open automatically against the direction of travel thanks to temperature sensors, thus ensuring a pleasant circulation of fresh air in the carriages. The glass roof is lowered slightly so that the railway can pass under the existing bridges despite the upright windows. The carriages also have an air blower to provide passengers with sufficient fresh air even when the roof windows are closed.
With the remodelling of the stations and the new carriages, the Gurten Bahn’s operating processes can be made more efficient. In future, passengers will be able to buy their tickets cashless, at ticket machines on site or digitally via electronic channels. A standardised ticket and payment system will be used for the Gurten Bahn, the multi-storey car park, the toboggan run, the ski lift and the toboggan run. In normal operation, the railway will run unaccompanied in future. In the evening, fully automatic operation without staff is even planned. In order to be able to optimise the flow of passengers during unaccompanied operation, the stations will be equipped with additional perron doors. The entrances to the doors, as well as all doors on the new carriages, will guide passengers in the right direction via green/red LED light strips in the traffic light system to guarantee smooth boarding and alighting.
