A train at 200 km/h every two minutes.

The newly built line between Bern and Zurich is the core of the Rail 2000 concept. A combination of route straightening and ETCS Level 2 has cut journey times between the three main Swiss-German cities of Bern, Zurich and Basel to well under an hour. The new 42km section is used by 242 trains a day travelling at speeds of up to 200km/h and with headways of 2 minutes.

Following a five-year period of development and testing, including hundreds of laboratory integration tests, several thousand test runs and the training of over 2500 drivers, the line was successfully put into commercial service with ETCS Level 2 on the 2nd of July 2006.

After a stepweise increase of the Level 2 operation, the system has been put to full commercial services on 18th of March 2007. SBB is the first railway to operate an ETCS system with passenger and freight traffic and operational headways of 110 seconds.

Facts & figures

• 45km double track, thereof 14.5 km in tunnels.
• 242 trains per day (total )
• Operational  headway 110 sec @ 200km/h
• Signalling system ETCS Level 2 based on SRS 2.2.2 and some CR’s of subset 108
• Electronic interlocking Elektra II
• Redundant axle counters AzLM
• Close to 500 vehicles retrofitted with ETCS EuroCab and EuroRadio
• Retrofitting of ETCS to 468 vehicles
• Commissionin of the ETCS on 2nd of July 2006
• 24 h full service from 18 March 2007