Sernftal tramway
The Sernftal tramway (German: Sernftalbahn, SeTB) was an electrical narrow-gauge tramway in the Swiss canton of Glarus, which was operated by a private company. The line linked Schwanden railway station, on the Weesen to Linthal railway line, with communities in the valley of the Sernf river including Engi, Matt and Elm, where the line terminated. The line served a total of 13 stations, and its depot was situated at Engi-Vorderdorf, at roughly the half-way point of the line.
In 1879, the valley of the Linth river was connected to the Swiss railway network by the opening of the Weesen to Linthal line, but the side-valley of the Sernf river remained unserved. This impacted the local economy, and various proposals were brought forward to provide rail service to the Sernf valley. The eventual result was the Sernftal tramway, which opened on 8 June 1905.
The line was largely constructed immediately alongside the road, with some narrow street running sections through the villages. This resulted in a difficult to operate line, with a minimum curve radius of 39 metres (128 ft) and a maximum gradient of 6.8%. The line was constructed to metre gauge (3 ft 3 3⁄8 in gauge), and was electrified using direct current (first 750, then 800 V) generated from the line's own hydro-electric power plants and diesel engine generators.
Sernftal
Coordinates: 46°57′40″N 9°10′16″E / 46.961°N 9.171°E / 46.961; 9.171
The Sernftal or Kleintal is an alpine valley within Glarus Süd, in the canton of Glarus, Switzerland. It is formed by the Sernf, a right tributary of the Linth. Situated in the Sernftal are the villages of Elm (977 m) and Engi (812 m). The Panix Pass at 2407 m connects the Sernftal with the anterior Rhine valley in Grisons.
Geography
The valley is the site of an important geological feature of the Glarus Alps, the Glarner Hauptüberschiebung, a notable fault in alpine geology. A scale model of the feature is on exhibit in the American Museum of Natural History.
Name
The name Sernf (earlier also Sernft) is of pre-Germanic origin, either Celtic or an example of Old European hydronymy. It derives from a hypothetical *Sarnivos, containing a PIE root *ser "to flow".
The name of the Sernf river has received some attention in German online culture as the "fifth German word in -nf", popularized by Bastian Sick in his Spiegel Online blog. The word fünf "five" is the only genuinely German word with this ending, the others are early loanwords, including Hanf "hemp" (from kánnabis) and Senf "mustard" (from sinapis), and the toponym Genf "Geneva", from Genava.
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