Fribourg–Farvagny Trolleybus System
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The Fribourg–Farvagny trolleybus system () was a pioneering interurban
trolleybus A trolleybus (also known as trolley bus, trolley coach, trackless trolley, trackless tramin the 1910s and 1920sJoyce, J.; King, J. S.; and Newman, A. G. (1986). ''British Trolleybus Systems'', pp. 9, 12. London: Ian Allan Publishing. .or troll ...
line in the canton of
Fribourg or is the capital of the Cantons of Switzerland, Swiss canton of Canton of Fribourg, Fribourg and district of Sarine (district), La Sarine. Located on both sides of the river Saane/Sarine, on the Swiss Plateau, it is a major economic, adminis ...
,
Switzerland Switzerland, officially the Swiss Confederation, is a landlocked country located in west-central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the south, France to the west, Germany to the north, and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east. Switzerland ...
between 1911 and 1932. The long line was operated for most of its life by the Compagnie des omnibus électriques Fribourg–Farvagny, and linked the old Fribourg/Freiburg railway station with Farvagny-le-Grand. It was the first trolleybus system in Switzerland, although a 200-metre-long experimental trolleybus line had operated on a demonstration basis near the Château de Chillon and the Hotel Byron in 1900.


History


Origins

At the start of the 20th century, the ' was founded, with the goal of obtaining a concession for, and constructing, a
metre gauge Metre-gauge railways ( US: meter-gauge railways) are narrow-gauge railways with track gauge of or 1 metre. Metre gauge is used in around of tracks around the world. It was used by several European colonial powers including France, Britain and ...
tram A tram (also known as a streetcar or trolley in Canada and the United States) is an urban rail transit in which Rolling stock, vehicles, whether individual railcars or multiple-unit trains, run on tramway tracks on urban public streets; some ...
way from Fribourg to Les Daillettes, a neighborhood of
Villars-sur-Glâne Villars-sur-Glâne (; ) is a municipality in the district of Sarine in the canton of Fribourg in Switzerland. Geography Villars-sur-Glâne has an area, , of . Of this area, or 29.3% is used for agricultural purposes, while or 17.5% is fores ...
. It was also intended that the tramway be capable of extension to
Bulle Bulle (; ) is a Municipalities of Switzerland, municipality in the district of Gruyère (district), Gruyère in the Cantons of Switzerland, canton of Fribourg (canton), Fribourg in Switzerland. In January 2006 Bulle incorporated the formerly inde ...
. Subsequently, however, the committee learned of the achievements of a new "trackless railway" in Austria, and in 1908 sent a delegation to inspect it. The "trackless railway" was the Gmünd Electric Catenary-Automobile Line (), which had been opened in July 1907 as the first network based on the Mercédès-Électrique-Stoll system. As a consequence of the inspection, the committee decided in 1909 to pass up the tramway concession in favour of trolleybuses. Calculations had shown that construction costs for a trolleybus system were likely to be only a third of those of a tramway. The new trolleybus line was proposed to lead from Fribourg via Daillettes to Farvagny. Prior to the bridge over the Glâne, a branch line about one km (0.6 mi) in length was planned to the hamlet of Sainte-Apolline, also part of
Villars-sur-Glâne Villars-sur-Glâne (; ) is a municipality in the district of Sarine in the canton of Fribourg in Switzerland. Geography Villars-sur-Glâne has an area, , of . Of this area, or 29.3% is used for agricultural purposes, while or 17.5% is fores ...
. With these transport connections, a noodle factory might be developed at Sainte-Apolline, and relied upon for goods traffic.


Opening

On 31 August 1910, the committee received a concession valid up to 1 September 1915, which in 1912 was finally extended to 1 February 1932. The long section from Fribourg to Posieux went into service as the first part of the line. Test runs on this section began on 15 December 1911, and on 30 December 1911 the opening ceremony was held, before regular services began on 4 January 1912. The
depot Depot may refer to: Places * Depot, Poland, a village * Depot Glacier (disambiguation) * Depot Island (disambiguation) * Depot Nunatak * Depot Peak Brands and enterprises * Maxwell Street Depot, a restaurant in Chicago, United States * Of ...
was located in La Glâne. The second, Posieux– Magnedens (Es Bous) section, which was long, was put into operation on 1 October 1913. This section was, however, temporarily shut down again between August 1914 and August 1915, because the road had to be modified to cater for the new loads. On 1 November 1916, the long Magnedens (Es Bous)–Farvagny-le-Grand section was opened. At the Farvagny-le-Grand terminal, a second depot was provided. With the completion of this section, the maximum extent of the line was reached, because the planned branch to Sainte-Apolline was never built.


Decline

As a result of economic difficulties after
World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...
, an extension of the system to Bulle could no longer be pursued. In addition, the system's vehicles had defects, which were due mainly to the still not very advanced vehicle technology and the poor road conditions. The 1925 schedule included five pairs of trips over the entire route as well as an extra pair over the Fribourg–La Glâne section. Following the electrification of the
Lausanne–Bern railway The Lausanne–Bern railway is a mainline railway in Switzerland. The first part of the line was opened in 1860 and the original line was completed on 4 September 1862. The line was built by the Swiss Central Railway and the Lausanne–Fri ...
by the
SBB-CFF-FFS Swiss Federal Railways (, SBB; , CFF; , FFS) is the national railway company of Switzerland. The company was founded in 1902 and is headquartered in Bern. It used to be a government institution, but since 1999 it has been a special stock corpo ...
, the Romont–Bern catenary went into service on 15 May 1927, and the trolleybus overhead wires at the La Glâne railway crossing had to be dismantled. From then onwards, the electrical contact troller had to be exchanged, in a cumbersome procedure, every time a trolleybus used the level crossing; this task was carried out by an employee of the company's nearby depot. It was not until 1949 that an obstacle-free crossing would again have been possible – in that year, the level crossing was replaced by an overpass further to the east. Management of the system was ceded on 1 April 1929 to the Chemins de fer électriques de la Gruyère (CEG), which decided to continue operating the concession until the end of its term on 31 January 1932, but not to extend it. The reasons for this lay, on the one hand, in the desire to extend the line via Farvagny, and, on the other hand, in the slow and laborious procedures when trolleybuses were crossing in opposite directions, and at the railway level crossing. On 21 May 1932, the last scheduled trolleybus service ran along the line. During the system's entire period of operation, a total of 1.5 million people were transported electrically. From the day following the system's closure, the CEG used only diesel buses, which could run continuously through to Bulle. The normal travel time of 50 minutes by trolleybus fell to just 30 minutes after the change to diesel buses. Today this route is served by regional bus line 336. In the urban area of Fribourg, the
Transports publics fribourgeois The Transports Publics Fribourgeois (TPF) is a renaming of the former Chemins de fer Fribourgeois Gruyère-Fribourg-Morat when the municipal Transport en commun de Fribourg (TF) was absorbed in 2000. Lines The company is a railway operator ...
(TPF) has operated a modern trolleybus network, the Fribourg trolleybus system, since 1949.


Infrastructure

Only a single pair of overhead wires was installed along the entire Fribourg–Farvagny route. This catenary arrangement consisted of two
copper Copper is a chemical element; it has symbol Cu (from Latin ) and atomic number 29. It is a soft, malleable, and ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. A freshly exposed surface of pure copper has a pinkish-orang ...
wires, in diameter, mounted apart. These wires were located at a height of above the roadway. The Mercedes-Électrique-Stoll design allowed for a lateral deviation of to . In La Glâne, and from 1916 also in Farvagny-le-Grand, was a depot with a
converter station An HVDC converter station (or simply converter station) is a specialised type of substation which forms the terminal equipment for a high-voltage direct current (HVDC) transmission line.Arrillaga, Jos; High Voltage Direct Current Transmission, s ...
. The
voltage Voltage, also known as (electrical) potential difference, electric pressure, or electric tension, is the difference in electric potential between two points. In a Electrostatics, static electric field, it corresponds to the Work (electrical), ...
used on the system was 550 volts DC. The standard Mercédès-Électrique-Stoll system contact trollers ran along the wires. They were connected by a cable to the vehicle. Under this arrangement, the vehicles could therefore operate in both directions without the provision of
turning loop A balloon loop, turning loop, or reversing loop (Glossary of North American railway terms, North American Terminology) allows a rail vehicle or train to reverse direction without having to Shunting (rail), shunt or stop. Balloon loops can be u ...
s. When two vehicles travelling in opposite directions needed to cross, the contact trollers were exchanged between the vehicles; the driver unplugged his vehicle and then plugged in the troller of the oncoming vehicle to continue his trip.


Fleet

Three passenger-carrying vehicles, with fleet numbers 1 to 3, and a trolleytruck, were acquired for use on the system. Along with the Gümmenen–Mühleberg trackless railway (1918–1922) – which was, however, an exclusively freight carrying operation – the Fribourg–Farvagny trolleybus system was one of only two trolleytruck operations in Switzerland. However, the trolleytruck was seldom used, due to the lack of a branch line. The manufacturer of all of the vehicles, the
Daimler-Motoren-Gesellschaft Daimler-Motoren-Gesellschaft (abbreviated as DMG, also known as Daimler Motors Corporation) was a German engineering company and later automobile manufacturer, in operation from 1890 until 1926. Founded by Gottlieb Daimler (1834–1900) and Wil ...
in
Wiener Neustadt Wiener Neustadt (; Lower_Austria.html" ;"title=".e. Lower Austria">.e. Lower Austria , ) is a city located south of Vienna, in the state of Lower Austria, in northeast Austria. It is a self-governed city and the seat of the district administr ...
,
Austria Austria, formally the Republic of Austria, is a landlocked country in Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine Federal states of Austria, states, of which the capital Vienna is the List of largest cities in Aust ...
, fabricated the chassis and bodies, and installed the
electrical equipment Electrical devices or electric devices are devices that functionally rely on electric energy ( AC or DC) to operate their core parts (electric motors, transformers, lighting, rechargeable batteries, control electronics). They can be contraste ...
. All four vehicles were delivered in 1911. The trolleybuses offered seventeen seats and seven standing places. They initially had a top speed of , weighed and were equipped with two
wheel hub motor A wheel hub motor, hub motor, or in-wheel motor is a motor that is incorporated into the Wheel#Hub, hub of the wheel. Wheel-hub motors are commonly found on electric bicycles. Electric hub motors were well received in early electric cars, but ha ...
s with a power output of . The wheels of each vehicle were made of wood. The front wheels were fitted with single-layer solid rubber tyres, and the rear wheels had double layered tyres. The two hub motors were very vulnerable, partly due to the vehicles' lack of suspension, and partly because they were not fully enclosed like their present-day equivalents. These weaknesses led to breakdowns, as the roads were still unpaved dirt roads, causing the motors to suffer from dust exposure. For these reasons, the three trolleybuses were rebuilt between 1917 and 1920. The rebuilding work was carried out by Tribelhorn in Feldbach, and included the installation of new engines. After the rebuilds, the vehicles' top speed was . The weight of cars 1 and 2 was increased to , and car 3 to . The vehicles were painted in a dark red livery, with part of the undercarriage picked out in yellow. So that the passenger-carrying operation could be sustained, a
Saurer Adolph Saurer AG was a Swiss manufacturer of embroidery and textile machines, trucks and buses under the Saurer and Berna (beginning in 1929) brand names. Based in Arbon, Switzerland, the firm was active between 1903 and 1982. Their vehicles were ...
motorbus A bus (contracted from omnibus, with variants multibus, motorbus, autobus, etc.) is a motor vehicle that carries significantly more passengers than an average car or van, but fewer than the average rail transport. It is most commonly used i ...
of type 32 R was procured in 1917. After the closure of the system in 1932, all vehicles were sold to individual purchasers, and over time all were scrapped.


See also

*
List of trolleybus systems in Switzerland This is a list of trolleybus systems in Switzerland. It includes all trolleybus systems, past and present. Alphabetical list by principal city Trolley freight In addition to trolleybus systems, one trolley-freight (or trolleytruck) system exis ...


References


Notes


Books

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External links


Image gallery at www.polier.ch
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Fribourg-Farvagny trolleybus system Transport in Fribourg Defunct trolleybus systems by city Trolleybus transport in Switzerland Transport infrastructure completed in 1912 1912 establishments in Switzerland 1932 disestablishments in Switzerland