BOB Railcar ABeh4/4 - 304The Bernese Oberland railway is a meter-gauge railway system in the Bernese Oberland region of Switzerland. It runs to serve Interlaken and Lauterbrunnen and Grindelwald via Zweilütschinen junction. The railway is rack assisted i.e. rack and pinion operation is used on steep sections of the line to assist traction. The line opened on 1 July 1890 with 1,000 mm (3 ft 3 3/8 in) gauge line using steam traction. Steam traction on the line came to an end in 1914 as the line gets electrified at 1500 V d.c. overhead supply.
Since 1949 railcars have predominated. Some of the older electric locomotives still survive and are used for special trains. The centre of operations is Zweilütschinen with the depot headquarters and the modern main workshops. Two train compositions are usually coupled together to travel to Zweilütschinen where they are then split. The front portion travels to Lauterbrunnen, the other one to Grindelwald. The motor coach is always positioned on the uphill side, a driving trailer being positioned on the downhill side, to avoid any running round manoeuvres at the terminus stations.
In this photo, ABeh 4/4 class railcar - 304 named as 'Bern' just taking a breather after bringing in the uphill service to Lauterbrunnen from Interlaken Ost. This railcar was built by SIG/SLM/BBC in 1965 and rebuilt at 1997. Photo taken by Bani Das & Asit Baran Das on 14th May 2015.