So, this is Switzerland. Welcome to Zurich.

Normally, I'm all about schlepping luggage and using public transport when travelling.  

I've had us toting luggage uphill after dark in San Francisco.  I've had us jammed into a commuter train in Hamburg Germany rush hour.  I've had us walking in circles in Paris after toting our luggage on a Metro train.  I've had us hauling luggage up and down flights of stairs in a nearly deserted Brussels train station, not knowing exactly where to go for the subway train.  I've had us going the wrong way on a Stockholm Metro train and missing our rendezvous for our AirBnB key.  I've had us walking out of the airport in Wellington NZ down several busy streets to a local Burger King to catch an Uber.

Why? Because I always ask myself, "How hard can it be?"  and at least half the time the answer is "Harder than I think!"

So, thankfully, this trip started with being met at the airport...with a sign...that had our name on it...and a ride that takes us right to the hotel front door...and loaded and unloaded our luggage.  Wow!  I could get used to this!  ...maybe.

Our Hotel in Zurich

We arrived a couple of days before Leslie and Eric and had some time to adjust to the jet lag and see what Zurich had to offer.  Zurich is the largest city in Switzerland - about 1.5 million in the metro area, so not really huge like a London or Paris.  It's on the Limmat river that exits to Lake Zurich.  The oldest part of the city is centered around the Limmat.

Looking up the Limmat.  The three big churches, from left to right, Fraumünster, St. Peter and Grossmünster

After getting some pre-paid, unlimited data SIM cards for our phones,  we walked around a bit on the first day, getting turned around a couple times wandering the old streets. 

Curved streets and tram tracks

Medieval street with St. Peter in background 

Müntzplatz and Catholic Church. 
Potable drinking water fountains are ubiquitous in Switzerland.

We ended the day with a nice dinner on the hotel patio.

All local Swiss beer was good.  So were Swiss wines.

The first full day, we took a free walking tour of the city  (you pay at the end with a tip depending on how much you enjoyed the tour).  

At Fraumünster, beheaded fellows carry their own heads across the bridge before dying.

Some scenes along the route

Seminary School near Grossmünster

St. Peters towers over the Limmat

Fraumünster - Chagal stained glass which we stupidly didn't go inside to see.

Tour group at Grossmünster

The view from near St. Peter

After the walking tour, we climbed up one of the spires of Grossmünster for the views looking back across the Limmat towards St. Peter and West Zurich

Then, a walk to what must be the world's shortest funicular up to some views from the university.

The walk to the funicular

Funicular station with neat stained glass windows

The funicular.  Nearly all passing track

The University...

...and the view

One of the best things about Switzerland is the Swiss Travel Pass for visitors. (Swiss Travel Pass)  It included nearly every train, boat, tram, bus and museum in the country.  You just show up, get on, and go. There are boat routes all over Lake Zurich.  People use them mostly for leisure transportation or sightseeing.  We took one that went to Rapperswil and then took the train back to Zurich.

Boat people

Sailing past suburban Zurich

The boat stopped all along the lake with great timekeeping precision

Many of the boat landings had restaurants

Typical scene along the lake

Arriving Rappenswil

The boat

The Friary at Rappenswil

School and street scene

After lunch at a local restaurant, we headed back on the train.

Local train runs along the eastern shore of Zurich Lake

A few more things from Zurich...

A butter pretzel. 
They slice them open and schmear butter between the halves.  Yum!
Pretzel shops are everywhere.  One chain Bretzel Koenig (Pretzel King) is in every major train station.  

Boats, lake and Alps in the distance.  Our first glimpse.

The opera house.  Spotlessly clean.

So long Zurich!  On to St. Moritz.  An entirely different sort of place...

So, you want to go to Switzerland....

Fall 2019.  Norcross GA.  Our daughter's wedding.

I'm talking to my cousin Leslie.  She and her husband Eric take a couple of fabulous vacation trips each year.  

"We're going to Switzerland next year", she said.  (or something to that effect).

"Switzerland!  That's on our list, too!", I said.

She said, "Hey, you want to come with us?"

Now, whether she was just being polite or was completely earnest or somewhere in between, I have no idea.  I usually don't figure this stuff out until it's too late...

But, when all the dust had settled, we were all booked for a two week, self-guided tour of Switzerland in May of 2020.

I am really liking that an actual travel agent in Switzerland is building the trip.  I usually enjoy doing the trip planning myself, but it's too easy to make mistakes - big and small, and it would be nice to just have to follow a solid plan instead of worrying about whether the plan would work, or work well.  So, I was all in on this trip!

Then Covid hit.  "Let's try for 2021."

Then Covid didn't go away.  "Let's try for 2022."

Then Omicron hit in Winter of 2021/22, and Spring of 2022 started looking like it might be a bad idea, again.  But, it started ebbing as fast as it hit and cases were down everywhere, even Switzerland, and it was game on!

May 16th, 2022 arrived.  Here we go.  Board Delta in Atlanta for JFK.  Pre-Covid, there was a direct ATL to Zurich flight, but no more.  Now, we have to connect in JFK.  A tight 1:50 connection.

Everyone boards, the door closes, we push back and taxi toward the runway...and stop.  This is your captain, "There's a weather hold.  Storms in NYC.  We're gonna sit here for about and hour."  Oh. boy.  A 50 minute connection?  We just might make it, but our luggage?

Manhattan lit up by sunbeams

We approach JFK and make a big, sweeping turn over Long Island and get a good look at Manhattan and the storms that were still swirling around.  We land and get held out waiting for a gate.  The whole airport is a mess due to the storms.  

We finally get a gate, get the bus shuttle to the other Delta terminal, and find....out outbound flight is delayed and hour.  Whew!  Maybe our luggage will make it after all!  We grab a snack and wait for boarding.

We board and settle in.  Time to go!  No.  "Uh, this is your captain.  We're waiting on baggage handlers to be available to load out baggage.  They're saying an hour.  So, sit tight!"  What's another hour of seat time on a 9 hour flight...

Finally, 3 hours late, we take off!  The good news is, when we got there we didn't have to wait to check into the hotel, and actually slept some.  The bad news is, we were seated behind a super-hyperactive women who couldn't sit still for more than 90 seconds at at time.  (actual Swiss timing).  Up, down, screen on, screen off, seat recline, seat up, not-too-discrete "deck change",  screen on, seat recline, stand up, sit down, lean right, seat up, screen off, etc. etc. for 8-1/2 hours. 

With 30 minutes to go, she apparently takes a sleeping pill.  Zonk!  Out like a light.  Maybe her problem was some sort of other pill at the beginning of the flight.  We land.  Everyone gets off.  She's still sleeping - solid.  Crew has to just about drag her off the plane.  

Anyway.  Here's our inbound plane getting flipped for return to JFK as we head toward our baggage....

...which made the connection, too!

90 mph to Providence

Not your normal day at the office.  

The photo below was taken on December 2, 1981.  Somewhere west of Providence RI on the former New Haven Shoreline.  The 1980 rendition of the Northeast Corridor improvement plan is underway.  Note the new concrete ties on the track to the left.  Conrail is still running the local freight here.  Shortly, the Providence and Worcester will take over much of Conrail's operation in Connecticut and Rhode Island.

I'm on an FL-9 locomotive running at 90 mph with five Amfleet coaches between New Haven and Providence RI, passing a Conrail B23-7 on a local somewhere en-route.  My "not so calibrated" rear end firmly planted in the left hand cab seat.  It's raining.  I have my camera along and have some grainy Kodacolor print film in it.

The closing speed between the trains was rather fast, and I'm bouncing a bit in the seat.  It was dark and rainy and my poor print film was still pretty slow by today's digital standards.  So, I set as fast a shutter speed as possible, framed the shot and hoped for the best. 

Why am I here?

Remember this post?  Turboliners - more than just a train

The seven sets of Turboliners Amtrak purchased for the improved Empire Service weren't enough.  There were still trains that needed regular locomotives to cover all the trains now operating between Grand Central Terminal to Albany and beyond.  And those locomotives needed to be able to run on 3rd rail in order to get into and out of GCT.  

Amtrak had been using Metro North FL-9s to haul trains to and from GCT, changing power at Croton Harmon.  It took time and Metro North's FL-9s weren't always up to the task. Wanting to eliminate the engine change at Croton Harmon and have locomotives compatible with the new HEP equipped coaches and overhauled sleepers and diners, Amtrak purchase a half dozen FL-9s  from Metro North and sent them out for overhaul which included HEP engine generator sets replacing the steam heat boilers.  When the Turboliners arrived, Amtrak built a shop in Rensselaer to take care of them.  This shop could handle the FL-9s, too.  

With the railroad between Poughkeepsie and Albany (actually all the way to CP-169 west of Schenectady) upgraded for 90-110 mph operation, Amtrak was interested in operating the FL-9s at 90 mph.  So, Amtrak made the pitch to Conrail to increase the speed limit for these locomotives. Conrail said, "show us it's safe and practical. Apparently, it was common practice on the New Haven to let these beasts get up to that speed even thought the track speed limit was 80 mph. Amtrak had some signed letters from former New Haven engineers to that effect.

With the sour taste of the SDP40Fs still fresh, that was not good enough.  "Run them at 90 mph on your own railroad first and then do some testing on ours and we'll let you know", was Conrail's reply.  To be honest, they were a bit different, having HEP instead of a steam generator, so these locomotives needed a close look.

They sent me and a couple of guys from the Technical Services Laboratory in Altoona to get involved. We met the Amtrak folk in New Haven and they had a three car test train to operate to Providence and back.  The goal was to see if one FL-9 could haul five coaches to 90 mph.  In theory it should work - just barely.

We met the Amtrak representative on the platform at New Haven and boarded the test train there.  We rode to New Haven with out a glitch, dropped two coaches and ran back with three, easily making 90 mph.

Having successfully completed that part, it was off to the Hudson Line to do some instrumented ride quality testing.   A test train south from Albany-Rensselaer to Harmon, turn the power and return to Albany Rensselaer.

Test FL9 after turning in Harmon

The results?  Ride was good enough.  Rear end was a bit bouncy and underdamped.  Lateral accelerations were acceptable and well damped.  The only thing out of whack was the front truck appeared out of tram a bit as the flange wear was uneven.  This did not have a measurable impact on the ride, however, and we recommended raising the limit to 90 mph...

...only to have it struck down by the regional GM and, ultimately, the Sr. VP of Transportation, Dick Hasselmann.  Why?  They decided that the out of tram truck was a sign of poor maintenance.  (It was actually a sign of poor rebuilding.)  We just added this to the stack of his decisions we disagreed with and resubmitted them for approval in 1989, when he retired.

So, in 1989, the Amtrak FL9s finally go the go-ahead to operate at 90 mph.  In practice, train size often kept speeds under 90 mph, anyway.  Here are some pictures of the FL9s in action.

Hustling the Lake Shore Limited south through Casleton with an F40PH helping get things up to speed.  The F40PH would come off in Harmon and be added to the westbound later that day.

Headed through Cold Spring northbound.

At Albany-Rensselaer with HEP generator car.  Normally, the longer trains heading further upstate would have the FL9 dropped and an F40PH added.  HEP car is a mystery.

Arriving Hudson, northbound