The history of BLS Ltd

After the opening of the Gotthard Railway in 1882, the Canton of Bern found itself cut off from the main north–south transport axis. To counter this, the canton made full use of its federalist rights to establish its own transit railway.

However, no financial support could be expected from the Swiss Confederation. The federal authorities strongly opposed a competing transit route. As a result, the Canton of Bern had to secure funding elsewhere – unexpectedly from its western neighbour.

After France lost Alsace-Lorraine and the border crossing at Basel to Germany in 1871, economic circles in Paris became interested in financially supporting an attractive international transit railway through Switzerland. The border town of Delle was intended to become the new gateway to Switzerland and Italy.

Former Bernese government councillor Wilhelm Teuscher (1834–1903) developed several route variants via Frutigen–Lötschberg for such a railway. However, the Lötschberg project faced competition from a Wildstrubel route. Two competing route proposals emerged, dividing the Bernese cantonal government into opposing camps.

In the end, the pro-Lötschberg initiative committee prevailed: on 27 July 1906, just a few months before construction work began, the Bern–Lötschberg–Simplon Railway Company (BLS) was founded.

The overall construction work for the approximately 58-kilometre mountain railway line between Frutigen and Brig was awarded to a French construction consortium. Work on the 13.7-kilometre Lötschberg Tunnel began on 15 October 1906. In the same year, the Simplon Tunnel between Brig and Iselle in Italy was inaugurated.

As early as 1907, the federal authorities required BLS to expand the Lötschberg Tunnel to double track and to design the access ramps accordingly. However, due to financial constraints, a full-length substructure for a second track could not be realised. Only the Lötschberg Tunnel itself was built with double track.

On 24 July 1908, during excavation works directly beneath the Gastern Valley, large amounts of water and sedimentary rock broke into the tunnel shaft. Twenty-five Italian miners lost their lives in the disaster. Following this tragic event, construction work was suspended for around six months. The tunnel section filled with debris was sealed off and a bypass around the accident site was planned.

As a result, three curves had to be built inside the mountain, making the Lötschberg Tunnel slightly longer than originally planned – 14.6 kilometres instead of 13.7 kilometres. On 31 March 1911, after four and a half years of construction, the breakthrough was achieved.

After the access ramps on both sides of the Lötschberg had been completed with their impressive engineering structures (33 tunnels, 22 bridges and 3 avalanche protection galleries), the electrified Lötschberg Railway (15,000 volts, 16 ^2/3 hertz alternating current) officially entered service on 19 June 1913.

For only a short time, international transit trains crossed the Alps via the Lötschberg route before the First World War and its consequences began to emerge on the horizon.

With the takeover of the Thun Lake Railway Thun/Scherzligen–Interlaken–Bönigen (TSB), BLS became in 1913 the operating company for the Bern–Neuchâtel Railway (BN – 43 km), the Gürbetal–Bern–Schwarzenburg Railway (GBS – 52 km) and the Spiez–Erlenbach Railway (SEZ – 35 km). Through the merger with TSB, the Lötschberg Railway also became operator of navigation services on Lake Thun and Lake Brienz.

In 1915, BLS opened the Grenchenberg line between Moutier and Lengnau, including the 8.5-kilometre Grenchenberg Tunnel. The route via Delle to Grenchen and Biel was intended to bring France closer to the Lötschberg route and thus to Italy. Until then, crossing the Jura Mountains between Moutier and Biel had only been possible via detours.

However, when Alsace-Lorraine was returned to France under the Treaty of Versailles in 1919, the border point of Delle lost its importance. Transit traffic once again shifted back to the Basel/St-Louis route.

Thanks to growing freight transport between Germany and Italy via the Lötschberg–Simplon route, BLS managed to compensate for the loss of transit traffic. Domestic Swiss traffic to the canton of Valais also experienced significant growth. No one any longer doubted the political and economic importance of the new Alpine crossing.

In 1976, the Federal Council approved a construction loan of 620 million Swiss francs for the gradual expansion of the Lötschberg line to double track. Construction work began one year later. On 8 May 1992, the fully double-track Lötschberg line was officially inaugurated.

At the end of 1993, the Swiss Confederation commissioned BLS to provide a rolling highway corridor for trucks on its route until the opening of the base tunnel. The corresponding construction work began in January 1994.

The opening of this transit corridor was delayed due to geological problems on the southern side of the Simplon route. Operations finally commenced on 11 June 2001.

Since then, the “Rolling Highway” – the transport of trucks by rail from Germany via the Lötschberg route to Italy – has made a significant contribution to shifting transit traffic from road to rail.

Towards the end of the 20th century, the economic, political and legal environment of European railways changed so significantly that restructuring within railway companies became unavoidable.

Liberalisation and competition also reached the railway sector. BLS Lötschbergbahn responded at an early stage and strategically repositioned itself: on 1 January 1997, the jointly operated railways BN, GBS and SEZ merged with BLS to form BLS Lötschbergbahn AG.

The organisational structure of BLS was also completely modernised. The new organisation was built around the three performance-oriented core businesses: infrastructure, passenger transport and cargo. This resulted in a financial and organisational separation between the infrastructure and transport divisions.

In order to remain competitive within the European rail market, BLS and SBB agreed on a new division of responsibilities, which they formalised in a framework agreement in May 2001.

Most of the agreement was implemented with the timetable change on 12 December 2004: BLS took over the S-Bahn lines previously operated by SBB and thereby assumed overall responsibility for the Bern S-Bahn – the second-largest suburban rail network in Switzerland. At the same time, BLS transferred its long-distance services to SBB.

In the cargo sector, SBB assumed system leadership for single wagonload traffic in Switzerland. Since then, competition has existed in transit and block train transport.

Today, SBB is responsible for nationwide network management. Following the opening of the Lötschberg Base Tunnel, BLS assumed operational management of the entire Lötschberg–Simplon axis.

On 27 September 1992, the Swiss population voted by a large majority in favour of the New Rail Link through the Alps (NEAT) project. With this vote, the people expressed their support for the construction of two Alpine transit routes – one through the Gotthard and the other through the Lötschberg.

The original Lötschberg project planned a 41-kilometre base tunnel with two tubes between Frutigen and the Rhône Valley. However, for financial reasons, the project was scaled down: the tunnel length was reduced to 34.6 kilometres. One of the two tubes was, for the time being, constructed largely only as a shell structure.

From 2007 onwards, trains were expected to travel through the Lötschberg Base Tunnel at speeds of 160 to 200 km/h. The Lötschberg NEAT project was built by the BLS subsidiary company BLS AlpTransit AG.

The opening of the base tunnel took place on 15 June 2007. Full commercial operation began with the timetable change on 9 December 2007.

In June 2006, Regionalverkehr Mittelland AG and BLS Lötschbergbahn AG merged to form BLS Ltd. The shareholders of both railway companies approved the merger at the general meetings held on 22 June 2006 (RM AG) and 23 June 2006 (BLS Lötschbergbahn AG).

The owners of the new company BLS Ltd are the Canton of Bern with 55.8%, the Swiss Confederation with 21.7%, and other cantons, municipalities and private shareholders with a combined share of 22.5%. The actual foundation of BLS Ltd took place on 24 April 2006 through the exchange of BLS and RM shares for shares in BLS Ltd by the participating cantons of Bern, Lucerne, Solothurn, Valais and Neuchâtel.

With this merger, BLS Ltd became, alongside SBB, the largest transport services company operating on Switzerland’s standard-gauge rail network. The company provides regional passenger transport across an area stretching from Lake Neuchâtel to Lake Lucerne and from the Jura Mountains to the Simplon massif.

Operations and services of the Bern S-Bahn can now be managed under one organisation. Every year, 37 million passengers use the regional and S-Bahn trains operated by BLS Ltd – and the number continues to grow.