Blonay–Chamby Museum Railway

About

The Blonay–Chamby Museum Railway (French: Chemin de fer-musée Blonay-Chamby, BC) is a short 3-kilometre-long (1.9 mi) steep but adhesion worked metre gauge heritage railway operated as part of the Blonay–Chamby Railway Museum using vintage steam and electric locomotives and rolling stock. It uses the Blonay–Chamby railway line, originally built by the Chemins de fer électriques Veveysans. It is rail-connected at both ends: at its upper terminus, Chamby Station on the Montreux–Lenk im Simmental line and at the lower end, Blonay station on the Vevey–Les Pléiades railway line operated by Transports Montreux–Vevey–Riviera.

The Blonay–Chamby Railway and Museum was opened in 1968 with the aims of operating the metre gauge railway line from Blonay to Chamby and in doing so preserving railway equipment of technical or historic value. For this purpose the Blonay–Chamby Railway built two motive power and carriage depots at Chaulin, a short distance from its upper terminus. They house what is generally regarded as the largest and most representative collection of preservation metre gauge rolling stock in the world. [ citation needed ]

Main article: Blonay–Chamby railway line The Blonay–Chamby Museum Railway is a railway preservation group staffed entirely by volunteers who operate trains each Saturday and Sunday between May and October. Vintage steam and electric hauled trains depart from Blonay and climb over Lake Geneva and the Alps. After reversing at or just before Chamby, the trains terminate at the museum site, where visitors can explore stationary exhibits.

A further part of the remit of the preservation group is the encouragement of local and regional tourism and tourist traffic on adjacent lines. The services from Blonay to Chamby and back are included in the Swiss National Railways Timetable.

As of autumn 2021 was home to over 70 items of rolling stock, listed below:

Electric locomotives, railcars and trams

Diesel locomotives, shunters and maintenance vehicles

- CIE : Compagnie de l'Industrie Électrique, Geneva

- EAG : Elektrizitätsgesellschaft Alioth, Basel

- MFO : Maschinenfabrik Oerlikon, Zurich

- MGK : Maschinenbau-Gesellschaft Karlsruhe

- MTM : Maquinista Terrestre y Marítima, Barcelona

- SAAS : Société Anonyme des Ateliers de Sécheron, Geneva

- SIG : Schweizerische Industrie Gesellschaft (Swiss Industrial Company)

- SLM : Schweizerische Lokomotiv- und Maschinenfabrik, Winterthur ( Swiss Locomotive and Machine Works )

- SACM : Elsässische Maschinenbau-Gesellschaft Grafenstaden (Grafenstaden Alsatian Engineering Company)

- SEG : Süddeutsche Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft ( South German Railway Company ), Darmstadt

- SWS : Schweizerische Wagons- und Aufzügefabrik AG Schlieren-Zürich (Swiss Wagon and Lift company)

- Sébastien Jarne, Le chemin de fer-musée Blonay-Chamby, tiré à part du livre « Voies étroites de Veveyse et de Gruyère », édition Chemin de fer-musée Blonay-Chamby, Lausanne, éd. 2, 1991, 56 p.

- Peter Willen, Lokomotiven und Triebwagen der Schweizer Bahnen, volume 2, Privatbahnen Westschweiz und Wallis. Orell Füssli Verlag, Zürich, 1977,