Switzerland's Frauenfeld-Wil Bahn

Above Frauenfeld and (bottom) Frauenfeld Stadt

Wil

(All pics copyright Steve Sainsbury/Rail Thing)

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A fairly typical Swiss light railway which connects two towns and two SBB stations is the unpretentious Frauenfeld-Wil Bahn. It runs through flat scenery with nowhere spectacular en route, but the section of street running through Frauenfeld is nice! In 1987 the station at Frauenfeld Stadt was a nice substantial building  hopefully it's still there!

The line is metre gauge.

Further information (from Wikipedia)

The Frauenfeld–Wil railway (German: Frauenfeld–Wil-Bahn, FW) is a metre gauge (3 ft 3 ³⁄₈ in gauge) railway line^[1] in Switzerland, which connects the town of Frauenfeld in the canton of Thurgau, to the town of Wil in the canton of St. Gallen, following the valley of the Murg river. The line is owned and operated by the Frauenfeld-Wil-Bahn AG, forms part of the Tarifverbund Ostwind, and operates as service S15 of the St. Gallen S-Bahn.

Plans to build a tramway between Frauenfeld and Wil were first made in the early 1850s. The rail line opened in 1887, and was electrified in 1921. Around 1.25 million passengers use the line every year.

Locals call the train "Wilerbähnli" or "Wiler Bähnli".

Operation

Trains run every 30 minutes, requiring 3 trains in operation at once, with trains crossing at the stations of Matzingen and Schweizerhof.

In 2011 the railway company ordered five new ABe4/8 low floor trains from Stadler Rail, to replace the old trains. However, there are plans for a 15 minutes interval in future and therefore some of the old trains will be retained. The first train was delivered in March 2013 and was tested for 3 months. It went into regular service on 26 June 2013.

Stations

15 stations are served by the line.

Station	km	Altitude
Frauenfeld	17.44	404.6
From Frauenfeld there are trains to Winterthur and Weinfelden.
Frauenfeld Marktplatz	16.85	417	since 1996
Lüdem	15.13	423
Murkart	13.92	431
Weberei Matzingen	12.62	440
Matzingen	11.49	447
Jakobstal	9.81	460
Wiesengrund	9.01	465
Wängi	8.27	470
Wängi GB (Service Station)	7.95	474
Rosental	6.5	487
Münchwilen Pflegeheim	4.66	509
Münchwilen TG	3.89	516
Schweizerhof (Service Station)	2.66	530
Wil	0.00	570.8
From Wil there are trains to Winterthur, Weinfelden, St. Gallen and Wattwil.

Freight Traffic

Freight trains ran on the line from 1907 until the early 2000s. This included transporter wagons from 1977 onwards.

The line's own Facebook page (German)