#degerloch

Friday, 8 September 2000

Buongiorno!  Grüß Gott!  Bonjour!  

Hello and welcome to the 17 day journey of September 2000.  

Today is 8th September 2000 and a Friday.  We will be going to Lac Léman, or Lake Geneva, in particular Lausanne, the Olympic Committee headquarters city.  But first, we will go on a morning adventure as my jetlag had not yet gone away.  

About 4:45 AM I woke up and took my video camera with me.  I went to the Metzstraße U-Bahn station.  I noticed something interesting about the U Bahn, as there are two gauges, one the 1 meter gauge for the GT-4 trams, then served by line 15 and went past the current Hostelling International Youth Hostel at Eugensplatz, ending at the tram loop at Ruhbank, and it still operates on Sundays as a special exhibition service.  The other is the 1.435 meter gauge known as standard gauge and is used also by most of Europe's mainline trains.  Many stations on the line have low floor sections for the meter gauge trams, and the newest DT-8 series that used the tracks that GT-4 used, had to have foldable steps for the stations where both train types serve, for example the Bad Cannstatt station that also has a connection to the S-Bahn.  The U Bahn has since been renovated and almost all stations have exclusively high floor platforms and only standard gauge, save for a few along the special exhibition line 21.  

I took the U Bahn line 1 at 5:20 AM from Metzstraße to Bad Cannstatt through Mineralbäder, which would terminate at Fellbach.  The Bad Cannstatt U Bahn station at the time, had only low floors, and the U1, U2 and U14 that stopped there, had to use the folding steps.  Bad Cannstatt, among many U Bahn stations in Stuttgart, were upgraded with high platforms as the line 15 in its previous form was converted to a full high floor stepless U Bahn.  I watched when I went to the S Bahn to ride into downtown, the U1 pull away in the direction of Fellbach, sort of northeast of Stuttgart.

About 5:40 AM the first S Bahn arrived at Bad Cannstatt.  It was of the ET420 train series, built in the early 1970s, that I remember from as far back as September 1983, and also in the 1990s when I lived in Frankfurt am Main and Munich.  I took it to Schwabstraße, so that I could come back to Rotebühlplatz / Stadtmitte on the newer ET423 trains.  The S Bahn went first to Hbf, then Rotebühlplatz, Feuersee, and Schwabstraße where the line terminated.  I took the next S Bahn back to Rotebühlplatz, and ended up at 6 AM at Calwer Turm.  The pedestrian shopping area was almost completely deserted, though there were a few busses circulating through downtown Stuttgart.  I walked to Rotebühlplatz and found a Döner Kebap seller open and ready to serve not only Döner Kebap but also Lahmacun, the turkish rollup pizza that I have enjoyed since June 1993.  I ate it before going on the southbound U Bahn train to Charlottenplatz and then to Marienplatz, to connect with line 10, the Zahnradbahn, otherwise known as the cog rail that went uphill east and south to Degerloch.

I had to wait at Marienplatz until the train left at 6:49 AM for Liststraße, Pfaffenweg, Haigst and Degerloch.  I had rode it a previous time on Saturday 2nd August 1997, so I had some idea what to expect.  The line 10 train split at Wielandshöhe for the other train to come down.  On each train is a bicycle rack, always at the south end in front of the train if you look at it if you are at Marienplatz.  Between Pfaffenweg, Wielandshöhe and Haigst, you can see quite an interesting view of the Neckar Valley and downtown Stuttgart.  After Haigst but before Nägelestraße, I could see the per-liter prices for fuel in D-Mark.  It was about 1.90 D-Mark for a liter, about one Euro.  At the time, the US Dollar had more value than the Euro.  Just before 7 AM, the train reached Degerloch U Bahn Station, which was underground.  Already the train was maybe 1,000 feet above sea level, probably 400 feet above downtown Stuttgart.  I took a 7:03 AM train to the next stop at Albstraße so that I could come into the station and then head back to the hotel in time for breakfast.

I took the 7:10 AM train which was stepless, so it could not be operated on the same line as the GT-4 tram line 15.  I took it through a couple of tunnels passing through Weinsteige, Bopser, Olgaeck, and Charlottenplatz.  I had to change at Charlottenplatz to a train for Metzstraße.  While at Dobelstraße, I noticed a sign for one of those floor waxer rental places, plus a Döner Kebap shop.  I made it to the hotel about 7:45 AM.  Breakfast was similar to what I had in Igls at Pension Oswald, coffee, bread rolls, jam, cheese, sliced meats and so on.

I packed up and took a shower in the hallway bathroom.  In the meantime I had my radio on, and it recorded "Let's get loud" by Jennifer Lopez, "Never be the same again" by Mel C of the Spice Girls, "Desire" by Ultra Naté, "Everything is coming up roses" by Black, and "Groovejet (if this ain't love)" by DJ Spiller with Sophie Ellis-Bextor on vocals.  I watched a few videos while packing up, including "Will the real Slim Shady please stand up" by Eminem.  Then about 9 AM I brought my luggage down, and checked out.  I think it cost $45.00 for the night.  I took the U Bahn to Hbf, but got a notion to take the S Bahn past the University and take it back to Hbf, as the train to Karlsruhe would not depart until at least 10:04 AM.  

The train left at 10:05 AM for Karlsruhe.  It went past Zuffenhausen, the factory where Porsches are built, then Pforzheim.  The train went very fast, maybe 100 mph through a few tunnels as they were zoned for 120 mph travel if the signals permitted, and about 10:35 AM the train arrived in Karlsruhe Hbf so I could change to the train that stopped at Basel Badischer Bahnhof, Basel SBB and Olten where I would change again.  The second train was at Baden Baden about 11:24 AM, and an hour later, 12:42 PM it was at the last station in Germany, Basel Badischer Bahnhof.  It is a special train station, where the train platforms are considered to be in Germany, but the station lobby is considered to be past the Swiss border and legally in Switzerland.  Basel SBB is entirely in Switzerland.  There was no border check or passport control that time, only the conductor checking my Eurail Pass.  The train crossed the Rhine at 12:47 PM into Birskopf BS before entering the SBB/SNCF station.  The train stopped at Basel SBB about 12:51 PM, to change directions.  I turned on the radio and the Let's Get Loud song by Jennifer Lopez was played on the then-DRS3 station.  They changed call letters to SRF3 a few years ago, I guess 2015, music format in 2020 is essentially the same as in September 2000.  The train left Basel SBB about 1:15 PM for Olten, and went past Pratteln, Liestal and Sissach but did not stop.  

My first transfer in Switzerland happened about 1:45 PM at Olten.  I changed to an Inter Regio that went through the Canton of Solothurn and western Argovia that borders the half-canton of Basel-Landschaft.  It stopped at Oensingen (not Önsingen), Solothurn, Grenchen Süd (Grenchen Nord is for the line between Biel/Bienne and Delémont in the Canton of Jura), Biel/Bienne, Neuchatel (Neuenburg in German), Yverdon Les Bains and Lausanne.

I had the radio on between Olten and Biel/Bienne.  I had the radio tuned to the local RSR (Radio Suisse Romande), a French-language radio station.  They were playing classic songs of the late Serge Gainsbourg.  One of which was "Pauvre Lola" from 1964.  

About Grenchen Süd the train enters the Canton of Bern and the last station before crossing the unofficial "Röstigraben" is Biel (German) or Bienne (French).  What is the Röstigraben?  It is the linguistic boundary between the German and French speaking parts of Switzerland.  In German, the French speaking part of Switzerland is called the Westschweiz, and the German speaking part of Switzerland is called the Deutschschweiz, or "Düütschschwiiz" in Swiss German.  In French, the French speaking part of Switzerland is called La Suisse Romande.  On the trains, you can notice that the next-station chimes are different depending on which region of Switzerland you are in.  In the German part, there is a low-high-medium chime, and in the French part there is a high-medium-low chime, and in the Ticino there is a medium-medium-low chime.  You can put those all together played fast, which was the standard practice for journeys starting and ending.

The train left Biel/Bienne about 2:30 PM and some time after 3:20 PM the train was in the canton of Neuchatel, so I was in the outer fringes of the Suisse Romande.  The train continued to Lausanne.  I would have arrived there about 4 PM.  I bought a day pass for about 5 CHF.  I had to find the Gare-Flon cog rail line entry.  The entry was a bit north of the rail station.  At the time the CFF station had two adjacent tracks, both with cogs but neither were exactly at the same incline grade.  Both terminated at the Flon uphill transit hub, and at some point there was a track switch for the Gare-Flon line to the main Gare-Ouchy, pronounced as Ooshee.  At Flon, there was a stepless connection to the M1 that went to Renens, about fifteen miles west of Lausanne, and there was also a train station a level below that went to Etagnières.

In 2000, the trolley busses consisted of a regular bus, plus a trailer with doors controlled by the driver.  They seemed older than most of the trolley busses as you would see in Geneva, and did not have any next-stop announcements aside from the dot-matrix visual displays, as opposed to Geneva.

I took the 4:30 PM M1 train to Bourdonnette where there was a connection to the trolleybus line 2 that stopped by the Jeunôtel at the Bois de Vaux stop.  There were a couple of underground stops but most were at the surface.  I walked to the Jeunôtel with my luggage, and checked in about 4:45 PM.  I had a single room which actually was a 3 person bedroom without private shower, that would cost maybe $20 extra for the two nights.  

I ate supper at the hostel, and I think it was chicken, rice, salad and soft drinks.  The price was about 16 CHF, not bad.  At 5:30 PM I went to the Bois de Vaux trolleybus stop, boarded line 2 for Bourdonnette and took the M1 in.  I ended up at Flon about 5:50 PM and I walked around downtown.  I wanted to find a particular clothing store called the Vaca Lechera.  I saw an ad for it, in travel documentation that the city of Lausanne has sent me by mail a few months prior, I guess April 2000.  I thought about eating at the Manora restaurant but I decided maybe at a later time.  About 7:20 PM I was getting tired, and took the Flon-Ouchy cog rail train to Ouchy and take bus line 2 to Bois de Vaux to the hostel.  I decided from then on, that the combination of the Flon-Ouchy train to Ouchy and bus line 2 to Bois de Vaux, would be a better route to take.

I went to bed about 9 PM, and was excited for the next morning to get to go to Geneva and Bellegarde in France.

I hope you will join me again in the next story, Saturday 9th September 2000.  We will bring our country total to five out of seven.