Shipping services on
Lake Thun date back to at least 1834, when the first
steamship was introduced to connect the towns of
Thun and Interlaken, at each end of the lake. Interlaken is actually situated on an unnavigable section of the Aar river between
Lake Brienz and Lake Thun, and initially services docked at
Neuhaus, some away. In 1872, the
Bödelibahn railway was constructed from
Därligen, on Lake Thun, to Interlaken, and the Interlaken terminus of the Lake Brienz shipping services was moved to Därligen. However by the 1890s the railway was being extended to connect with Thun and the rest of the Swiss railway network, threatening the shipping services, and the
United Steam Navigation Company for Lakes Thun and Brienz (VDG) who operated those services responded by constructing the Interlaken ship canal to allow their vessels to reach the centre of Interlaken. The canal was built between 1890 and 1892. The VDG merged with the
Thunersee railway in 1912. In turn, this new company was taken over by the
Bern-Lötschberg-Simplon railway, which eventually became part of
BLS AG, the current operators of the lake shipping. == References ==