H715 Now Also Available in Switzerland

With the H715, HANNING & KAHL has been offering an electro-hydraulic point machine for deployment in railway applications since 2018. This point machine was developed to the joint specifications submitted by Deutsche Bahn (DB), Austrian Federal Railways (ÖBB) and Swiss Federal Railways (SBB). While several hundred H715s are already in successful operation in Germany and Austria, Switzerland had not been represented on the H715 map. This is now changing.
By Jens-Christian König

Following successful type approval, the H715 can now be deployed in Switzerland. At the end of 2021, the first H715 was commissioned in Switzerland despite the difficult COVID-19 pandemic situation. Since then, it has been performing reliably on the busy Swiss Südostbahn AG (SOB). Setting for the dense, S-Bahn-like traffic on the single-track line around 130 times a day makes high demands on the availability of the point machines.

Today‘s Südostbahn AG (SOB) originated in 2001 from a merger of the “old“ Südostbahn and Lake Constance Toggenburg Railway. It operates a 123-km line network between Romanshorn on Lake Constance and Arth-Goldau on Lake Zug. With a modern fleet of spurty Stadler Flirt I to III and Traverso multiple unit trainsets, SOB operates regional passenger services on its own network and mainline trains on SBB lines on the Treno-Gottardo route from Basel or Zürich via the renowned Gotthard Pass to Locarno and on the Aare-Linth route from the Swiss capital Bern to Chur in Graubünden.

Apart from the SOB, Switzerland has many more standard and narrow-gauge private railways which together with the SBB form one of the densest railway networks in the world. The alpine location requires sophisticated routing in harsh climates. Steep lines and rack railways also access remote mountain regions and tourist destinations. Sophisticated routing of this kind calls for solutions which provide reliable service even under difficult conditions.

With their large setting-force reserve and high availability, the H715 can also be deployed where conventional electro-mechanical point machines reach their limits. This is an advantage with rack-and-pinion points, for example, which require high setting forces. Together, HANNING & KAHL and the experts at our Swiss agency, Trelco AG, would be pleased to offer you bespoke solutions. 

If you would like to know more, please contact us or our colleague Patrick Hess at Trelco AG.