St. Gallen–Trogen railway

The St. Gallen–Trogen railway (Trogenerbahn, TB) was opened on 10 July 1903. Originally, the line was electrified at 750 volts DC. The voltage was increased to 900 volts in 1921 and finally to 1000 volts in 1928 with the replacement of the converter group in Speicher by a fully automatic mercury vapour rectifier plant. In the city of St. Gallen, the trains ran on the tracks of the St. Gallen Tramway, which was closed in 1957. Because of the intersections with the city trolleybuses, the contact wire voltage is still only 600 volts. Despite the modest length of its operations, the Trogen Railway has been preserved. The line, which originally ran almost completely on track laid on roads, has been largely moved over the years to its own route. With a gradient of up to 7.6%, the Trogen Railway was the steepest narrow-gauge adhesion line in Switzerland prior to the opening of the Ruckhalde Tunnel. In 2006 the company was merged into the Appenzell Railways. == Operation ==

Route The line commences at St. Gallen railway station, where it shares a platform, but not tracks, with the St. Gallen–Gais–Appenzell railway line that is also owned and operated by the Appenzell Railways company. After leaving this platform, the Trogen line runs onto the street in front of the main station building. Now running on double track, it runs through the city streets for some , sharing its route for much of the way with routes of the city's trolleybus system that replaced the city tramway. There are three intermediate stops on this street section, at Marktplatz, Spisertor and Schülerhaus. Shortly after the latter stop, the track switches to a single-track alignment alongside the road to Trogen, an alignment it maintains all the way to its terminus, albeit with several intermediate passing loops. The line is in length, has a track gauge of and a maximum gradient of 7.6%, and is electrified using an overhead line for current supply. On the street track section within the city of St. Gallen, where the railway's overhead line shares the street with that of the city's trolleybuses, the railway uses the same 600 V DC supply as the trolleybuses. Once on its own right-of-way, a 1,000 V DC supply was formerly used. Since the opening of the St Gallen cross-city line on 6 October 2018, the section of the line that was electrified at 1,000 V DC has been electrified at 1,500 V DC. Services Services are now operated as part of the Appenzell–St. Gallen–Trogen railway. From Trogen a postbus connects with the upper station of the Rorschach–Heiden railway, also owned by the Appenzell Railways, at Heiden. == References ==