The Swiss Society for Railway History (SGEG) was founded in 2004 in an emergency action, as the entire picture archive of Bombardier Switzerland – including the picture archives of the former SWP (Schindler Waggon Pratteln), SWS (Schweizerische Waggonfabrik Schlieren) and FFA (Flug- und Fahrzeugwerke Altenrhein) – had to be saved from destruction within a very short time.
The following reasons also led to the founding of the SGEG:
- For numerous private collections, the succession arrangements in case of death are unclear, and the continuation and preservation of such life’s work is thus unsecured.
- Commercial archives are being dissolved or reduced in many companies. In many cases, the existing institutions have reached the limits of their capacity. The existence of such important testimonies of industrial cultural development as part of the overall history is thus acutely endangered.
- Private initiative is therefore urgently needed to preserve the witnesses of Swiss railway history for future generations.
As a result, the archive could be taken over by Bombardier and stored in a protected location for the time being. The archive contains about 100,000 pictures and will require a great effort of maintenance in the future.
Already in the first year, the SGEG began to organise excursions on industrial history (mainly on railway topics), which are open not only to members of the association but to all interested parties.
Today, the SGEG is well established in railway circles. It looks after a comprehensive archive, organises interesting and unusual excursions and also offers information services in the field of railway history.
From Adliswil via the Zurich State Archives to a new storage location
The photo agency Ex-Press is moving its headquarters from Adliswil to Zurich. This means that SGEG’s Ex-Press premises are no longer available for storing the extensive Bombardier photo archive. Between 2012 and 2019, the complete archive could be stored in the premises of the State Archives of the Canton of Zurich. The storage room was specially air-conditioned, cool and dry and offered ideal conditions for the professional storage of the archive material. In the spring of 2019, differing opinions on how to digitise the archives led to the SGEG being forced to look for a different solution for storing the archive material. Since the end of April, the archive has been housed in a new, protected location. A major advantage of the new solution is that the archive material is finally under direct access by the SGEG again and requests for images can thus be answered within a reasonable time. Publication will continue to take place via www.bahnarchiv.ch.
A new database for Bahnarchiv.ch
On the Ascension weekend 2012, Bahnarchiv.ch was converted to a new database solution. This made the SGEG’s image collection even easier to search and network, and the approximately 2,300 images already available online (as of May 2012) easier to find.
Unfortunately, this database solution could no longer be used from the end of 2020, meaning that Bahnarchiv.ch was no longer interactively available online for two years.
Irrespective of this, the collection of images continued, so that the number of available images continued to increase.
bahnarchiv.ch has been available again on a new platform since Christmas 2022. After just over a year, bahnarchiv.ch has grown considerably. At the turn of the year 2023/2024, over 12,000 data records and 5,200 photos are already available on the platform. You can find detailed information on the platform used in the bahnarchiv.ch section of this website.
We hope you appreciate the hard work of our team under the leadership of Roger Bennet.
Translated with DeepL.com (free version)
Am Auffahrtswochenende 2012 konnte bahnarchiv.ch auf eine neue Datenbanklösung umgestellt werden. Damit war die Bildsammlung der SGEG noch besser durchsuchbar und vernetzt, die bereits online vorhandenen rund 2300 Bilder (Stand Mai 2012) besser auffindbar.
Leider konnte diese Datenbanklösung ab Ende 2020 nicht mehr genutzt werden, so dass bahnarchiv.ch zwei Jahre lang nicht mehr interaktiv online verfügbar war.
Unabhängig davon lief die Erfassung der Bilder weiter, so dass die Anzahl verfügbarer Bilder weiterhin laufend steigt.
Seit Weihnachten 2022 ist bahnarchiv.ch auf einer neuen Plattform wieder verfügbar. Nach gut einem Jahr ist das bahnarchiv.ch tüchtig gewachsen. Zum Jahreswechsel 2023/2024 sind bereits über 12’000 Datensätze und 5’200 Fotos auf der Plattform verfügbar. Detailinfos zur benutzten Plattform finden Sie in der Rubrik bahnarchiv.ch dieser Internetseite.
Wir hoffen, Sie schätzen den grossen Einsatz unseres Teams unter der Leitung von Roger Bennet.
Further archives
In addition to maintaining the Bombardier picture archive, SGEG also offers assistance in the succession management of private archives. Over the years, a number of private archives have been added to the SGEG collection, such as the archives of the VCS Neuchâtel section or the archives of renowned railway photographers Hans Waldburger, Josef Tanner, Rainer Siegenthaler, Daniel Heer and Hans Dellsperger. After digitisation, the archives are made accessible on bahnarchiv.ch.