Wednesday, October 1, 2014

Wednesday 1 October - Chur and Rhaetian Railways

As expected, it was raining when we left the hotel this morning. After a false start in which we nearly went to Luzern, we caught the double deck multiple unit train to Chur. The weather seemed to improve as we moved towards Sargans and Landquart and the rain had stopped by the time we had reached Chur.
Train from Arosa arriving at Chur
The train to Arosa leaves from outside the front of the Chur station and runs up the road until it reaches the country outside town.  We were in one of the new Allegra trains which are very comfortable and could watch the lady driver. The Arosa line is spectacular with very deep V shaped valleys and tall trees. There are some thrilling  prospects and a couple of impressive viaducts. As we approached Arosa small patches of meadow with houses began to appear in the forest and there is a good view down over a lake with many different shades of green, blue and yellow.
Viaduct on the line to Arosa
Arosa is nothing to write home about. It is just a lake with a few buildings on the other side which flourishes through skiing. The railway platforms and buildings are being expanded and trains are threading their way through a building site. We were not inclined to linger. The two trailing coaches were switched to the other end of the train and the lady driver brought us back to Chur under improving weather conditions. We were about three minutes late because of a discussion with control and it was a bit of a rush to get to the RhB train to Filisur. In this way I missed an opportunity to photograph an RE 6/6 at the head of a freight train with a couple of tanks on flatcars next the engine.

By this time it was quite sunny and one or two field cats, who had been absent in the morning, made an appearance. We had an excellent view of the Landwasser viaduct which was announced over the train intercom.
At Filisur we had a tight connection with the train to Davos Platz. However, it was a cross platform connection so we made it with ease.
There must be at least ten stations in Davos, all bur Davos Platz are request stops and most of them with typical Swiss log construction.
At Davos there was time for coffee and a pastry - an Apple Strudel and something similar which might have been almond.
While we were eating the train we came in on, which had a locomotive in the rear, was strengthened by adding more cars in the rear so the locomotive was buried in the middle. Regardless this was a very comfortable ride.
Davos Platz

Goats were standing on the sloped roof of a house and a horse was on the balcony.
The ride back from Landquart was very quick with just one stop at Sargans. There were good views of the Wallensee and the Zurichsee. There were many curls of mist hanging in the hillsides.

Zurich

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