A historic roundhouse and a new building: More from the Rhatische Bahn shops

Second of two parts. Part one is available here.

LANDQUART, Switzerland — After winding through a number of other buildings, the tour of the Rhatische Bahn’s main shops by Markus Zaugg, the railroad’s head of rolling stock, eventually wound its way to the 19-stall roundhouse Zaugg says is “probably the most famous railway spot in the whole of Switzerland.” Certainly, the RhB takes every advantage of the historic structure: when the railroad has something new or refurbished to show off, it is posed on the structure’s turntable (which is adorned with planters full of flowers — a touch you are unlikely to see in many other places).

“When the green locomotive came into service,” he says, referring to the Ge 4/4 II locomotives repainted into a historic scheme for addition to the RhB heritage fleet, “you had all the locomotives from the same series lined up with the green one in the middle. Oh, it was a beautiful sight.”

The first two stalls of the roundhouse were built in 1889; the rest followed a year later. Inside is a mix of current equipment — several of those Ge 4/4 II units, which might remind U.S. fans at least a little bit Amtrak’s retired AEM7s — and pieces from the railroad’s historical fleet. The latter include the RhB’s oldest railcar; one of its two surviving “crocodile” electrics, usually deployed on the daily heritage train between Davos and Filisur; and one of its two operable steam locomotives.

The steam locomotive in question, 2-8-0 No. 107, was built in 1906 by SLM — the initials work in English (Swiss Locomotive and Machine Works) or German (Schweizerische Lokomotiv und Maschinenfabrik) — and Zaugg says the railroad went for the state of the art at the time, even though SLM suggested a slightly less advanced model.

“You couldn’t get anything better than this,” he says. “It’s pretty amazing, with all the technical finishes and details. It’s a really, really beautiful locomotive. It runs so smooth and it’s so powerful. … You’ll see all the plugs are open and the air hose is connected so we can dry the boiler out so it won’t corride, because we didn’t use it for almost a year now.” A shortage of qualified drivers (engineers) kept No. 107 and sister No. 108, kept in Samadean, sidelined for all of 2024; they are expected to return to operation this year.

The only real misfortune I encountered on this trip that the RhB’s crocodiles — beloved by fans, as I understand it — were both out of service for maintenance. Usually, one handles the daily heritage train the railroad operates between Davos and Filisur (more  on that later). But at least I got to see this one: Ge 6/6 No. 414. It was one of 15 built between 1921 and 1929 by SLM, electrical engineering firm Brown, Boveri & Cie, and Maschinenfabrik Oerlikon.

We spend a good deal of time discussing the Ge 4/4 II locomotives, climbing into the cab of one, where Zaugg offers to take a photo with me at the controls. (An explanation of that Ge 4/4 II nomenclature appears at the bottom of this article.) These relatively small locomotives — just 42 feet long — have been the mainstays of the RhB locomotive fleet for decades, but are likely to be retired in 2030 or thereabouts.

“We are buying new trains, and then they will become obsolete,” Zaugg says. “And we will get rid of them. It’s a very big shame, but they will be like 55, 60 years old. … They’re working so good every day. They’re so reliable. But the electrical part of the locomotive is end of life, you have to replace it, and it’s just not economical to do it for all of them.”

We head outside just in time to catch one of the locomotives on the turntable, and then head to the final stop on our tour — the newest building, a mostly finished facility designed specifically to care for the 56 Capricorn electric multiple-unit trainsets built by Stadler. These four-car EMUs began entering service in 2020; six more have now been ordered and are expected in 2026.

Reflecting the 250-foot length of a Capricorn trainset, everything about the new building is designed to handle that length, including a system designed to lift an entire four-car set.

“Because the newer trains are longer, we need longer halls to maintain them,” Zaugg says. The building was also needed to meet modern workplace standards — “better environment, more space around, better safety equipment, and all that stuff.”

Among those modern touches — there are no maintenance pits.

“We decided for a flat working space here so you can go all over through the all without falling down anywhere,” he says. “But then we had to install these pedestals to lift the train up.”

One of the more impressive features, at least to me, was the system designed to maintain the wheelsets of the Capricorn trainsets. Thanks to the ability to lift an entire train, all eight wheelsets can be removed and replaced in a single shift.

‘The trucks that are taken off are then lowered by elevator to a below-ground level where trucks ready for installation are stored, and where a small railroad of sorts exists strictly to move those wheelsets around for servicing. One area in this level —not yet finished during my visit — will feature a series of workstations with individual turntables the size of the trucks to allow easy access.

“It looks like a Roman bath now,” Zaugg says, “but there will be different stations for maintenance work on the trucks — disassembling them, working on them, assembling them, then testing it.”

This portion of the project reflects the railroad’s desire to maintain broad competence for its maintenance staff, Zaugg says. “We could easily give it outside to another company, and say, ‘Hey, do this work for us.’ But then this know-how would be lost. … And it pays off. It’s not even in service and we already have third parties asking if we can take their trucks here for maintenance.”

It’s clear a lot of thought went into the design of this new building. The catenary in the shop building is more like an overhead version of a third rail, a solid strip rather than a wire. Once a train is in place for work, the juice is switched off and power catenary swings to the side, allowing the trainset to be lifted. And the doors on the tracks into the shop are unique: along with a regular door, there’s a second inner door with a cutout that matches the silhouette of a Capricorn trainset. If a train is part inside and part outside, these doors can be closed to seal out wind, cold, or other inclement weather.

Construction on this building began in 2018; it won’t be finished until 2026 until all of the specially designed details, like the wheelset maintenance facility or a new train washer, are in place. “That’s special-made,” Zaugg says, “and will be about a year. But then you can just drive through and in five minutes, you have a clean train.”

Given the generally spotless nature of the Landquart facility, it figures that clean trains would be an important feature.

How the Swiss classify locomotives

Swiss railways use a locomotive classification system that seems, well, foreign to an American. The most common locomotive on the RhB is labled a Ge 4/4 II; a freight unit on the Swiss Federal Railways might be an Re 6/6. Zaugg was good enough to explain this to me. Let’s use the Ge 4/4 II as an example.

— G indicates this is a narrow-gauge locomotive; on a modern standard-gauge unit, the first letter would most likely be R, for rapid, indicating this is one of the fastest locomotives.

— e indicates an electric unit. Other possibilities here include m (motor, for a diesel); d (dampf, German for steam), or t (for battery power).

— 4/4 indicates four powered axles, out of four total. A 4/6 would be equivalent to our A1A-A1A configuration. (There are plenty of variations; I recently saw a historical photo of an 8/14, although not on the RhB.) When applied to a steam locomotive, a 2-8-0 becomes a 4/5.

— The II indicates this is the railroad’s second series or generation of Ge 4/4 units.

Additional Trains.com articles on the Rhätische Bahn:

— “If you go” travel information.

— The Rhätische Bahn for railfans.