page_title: Appenzell–St. Gallen–Trogen railway
section_title: Cross-city line
hierarchical_section_title: Appenzell–St. Gallen–Trogen railway / History / Cross-city line
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Haltestelle St. Gallen Riethüsli der Appenzellerbahnen (AB) mit einem Triebzug ABe 8/12. Im Hintergrund das Südportal des Ruckhaldetunnels
context_page_description: The Appenzell–St. Gallen–Trogen railway, also known as the Durchmesserlinie, is a metre gauge overland tramway in the Swiss cantons of Appenzell Innerrhoden and Ausserrhoden and the city of St. Gallen. It is the steepest adhesion railway in Switzerland with a gradient of up to 8.0% and forms part of the network of the Appenzell Railways and the St. Gallen S-Bahn. The line's two branches were completed in sections between 1889 and 1904 by the St. Gallen-Gais-Appenzell-Altstätten Railway and the Trogen Railway. The two lines were connected by the AB with a cross-city route in 2018.
context_section_description: Since the 1970s, tunnels between St. Gallen and the suburb of Riethüsli have been planned to eliminate the last rack section between St. Gallen and Appenzell. All these projects failed on cost grounds. After the Appenzell Railways (AB) merged with the Trogen Railway (TB), the Rorschach–Heiden railway (RHB) and the Rheineck–Walzenhausen mountain railway (RhW) in 2006, the Appenzell Railways decided to increase services between St. Gallen and Teufen to 15-minute intervals. This required the shortening of the travel time between St. Gallen and Riethüsli, which was only possible with the removal of the rack section through the Ruckhalde. In order to eliminate the uneconomical service pattern of the trains in the St. Gallen "side" station (Nebenbahnhof) needed to be connected to the Appenzell–St. Gallen line of the Trogen Railway by the cross-city line, although the two track branches had very different characteristics.
  The Appenzell–St. Gallen–Trogen cross-city line became a key strategic project of Appenzell Railways. The required work was subdivided into five sub-projects, of which the St. Gallen station–Riethüsli section, including the proposed Ruckhalde Tunnel, which was approximately 700 metre-long, was the most complex and largest. Apart from the construction of the new track, further work was necessary. Thus, the overhead line voltage was raised to 1500 V; previously it had been 1000 V on the Trogen Railway and 1500 V on the St. Gallen-Gais-Appenzell Railway. Teufen station received a third platform track, so that besides the crossings of the regular interval services, trains can reverse there in the peak. The siding to St. Gallen AB station was replaced by a crossover and the double track was extended from the Rathaus (town hall) to the St. Leonhard bridge. In order to simplify operation, the seven signal boxes between Niederteufen and Trogen have been replaced by two new systems, which contain components of the SiGrid interlocking architecture, developed by Siemens. SiGrid connects the external facilities with the interlocking and supplies it with 750 Volt DC power.
  The cross-city line brings significant improvements to passengers: in addition to the 15-minute cycle between St. Gallen and Teufen, connections to Intercity trains to and from Zürich have been improved. The elimination of the technically complex and expensive to operate rack section in the Ruckhalde has made it possible to use the newly acquired Tango (class ABe 8/12) low-floor trains, which are more comfortable and quieter, but also more cost-effective. The Ruckhalde Tunnel route eliminated the need for six level crossings, which has significantly increased traffic safety in the Riethüsli district.
  The construction began in the spring of 2016. The cantons of St. Gallen, Appenzell Ausserrhoden and Appenzell Innerrhoden and their municipalities contributed a total of CHF 49 million to the total costs of around CHF 90 million, with the rest being financed by the federal government. While the cross-city line had been duplicated through the St. Gallen station forecourt, the forecourt had also been under renovation since 2015. The new line was opened on 6 October 2018 for a folk festival and scheduled commercial operations began on 7 October.
  Siemens used an interruption of operations to operate a digital interlocking for the first time anywhere in the world in September 2018. The signal box was operated from a Siemens location in Wallisellen on a trial basis via a public data network.
caption: The Ruckhalde tunnel was the most important structure involved in the development of the cross-city line. South portal of the Ruckhalde tunnel and the new Riethüsli station
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