Inception In the communities of the
Seetal valley, it was hoped initially that the main line from
Basel to
Lucerne would be routed through the valley, but the
Swiss Central Railway opted for a route via
Zofingen,
Sursee and
Sempach. At around the same time, the engineer
Theodor Lutz developed a concept for the construction of local railways. According to his ideas, these railways should share the use of existing roads, which would anyway lose the most traffic at the newly opened railway. In addition, this allowed the introduction of the local train directly into the town centers. Lutz managed to raise finance from investors in
London to put his ideas into practice on a line through the Seetal. On 22 August 1882 the Lake Valley Railway Company of Switzerland was established in London. On September 3, 1883, the first section was opened. The passengers included tourists from Lucerne doing sightseeing tours to the
Hallwilersee and
Baldeggersee lakes. Expansions of the main line followed, as well as a short branch line between Beinwil and Beromünster.
Changes of ownership The profitable expectations of the British investors were not fulfilled, and so they sold the line in 1894 to the newly founded Schweizerische Seethalbahn Aktiengesellschaft (SthB). They made various improvements, including the introduction of restaurant carriages. They were also pioneers of the electrification of Switzerland's railways, starting electric service in 1910 with 5.5
kV 25
Hz AC. Despite their efforts, the line remained unprofitable. In 1922 the line was acquired by the
Swiss Confederation and incorporated into the
Swiss Federal Railways (SBB). In 1930, the SBB modified the electrification to its standard of . Passenger service over the branch line between Beinwil and Beromünster ended in 1992 and the line was abandoned in 2001. It now forms part of a
cycle path.
Rebuild As originally built, the line had 500 unguarded
level crossings in a distance of 40 km -- one crossing every 80 m. Although the line's infrastructure had many of the attributes of a
roadside tramway or
light railway, it was operated using standard heavy rail rolling stock, with its greater width and longer stopping distances. Various options were investigated, including a major realignment of the line to more conventional heavy rail standards, but this had the twin disadvantages of a very high cost coupled with losing the attractiveness of bringing public transport to the hearts of the villages along the line. Switching to off-the-shelf trams was discussed, and a vehicle from the
Saarbrücken tramway was tried out on the line in 1998. In the end, the decision was made to finally equip the line with purpose-built interurban cars, featuring
low-floor access and a limited width. The reduced loading gauge allowed the infrastructure on the northern section of the line, between Lenzburg and Hitzkirch, to be reconfigured providing more space between parallel road lanes and at level crossings. Enhanced brakes on the new railcars allowed tramway-like "drive-by-sight" operation through the villages with a maximum speed of , whilst speed on other parts of the line was increased to . Other parts of the line were realigned to avoid conflict and as many level crossings as possible were removed. == Operation ==