Treat for train-spotters

There was a treat for train-spotters at the station last Monday afternoon as an Austrian diesel locomotive made an appearance on platform three.

The locomotive in question was number 2143 025, sporting the red and grey livery of the Rail Transport Service (RTS) from the Austrian province of Styria. Of course, diesel locomotives are still used on Swiss railways but more on sidings.

Such diesel locomotives as this one, which had arrived from Zurich, used to belong to the Austrian State Railways, Österreichische Bundesbahnen (ÖBB), who acquired as many as 77 of them in the period between 1964 and 1977 from the Simmering-Graz-Pauker company. Then in 2004, ÖBB sold off four of them to the RTS company, who installed more powerful engines in them, those with a horsepower of 1,970, rather than 1,495.

The RTS company itself was set up by the Swietelsky company, headquartered in Linz, and which is one of the largest railway-line construction companies in Europe. Precisely what this RTS locomotive was doing in Zug was not clear, though what is certain is that it had come a long way, bearing in mind this company’s headquarters are in Graz, the principal city in Styria, with other offices in Fischamend, which lies on the River Danube to the south-east of Vienna.

Of note, too, is that the RTS company has been growing continually since 2004 and now maintains a fleet of no fewer than 43 locomotives, many used on goods services.

Avid train-spotters in Zug may have also noticed another unusual locomotive, one from the Makies AG company of Gettnau in the neighbouring canton of Lucerne, which can often be seen shortly after 10 am on weekdays before it moves off north to Affoltern.