Saturday 31 August - Zurich to Yverdon-les-Bains and more

We took an early train to Yverdon this morning and dropped off our bags at the hotel which is close to the station.

At Yverdon-les-Bains the narrow gauge line to Ste. Croix had a lot of equipment out but there was no sign of the "crocodile". Which we eventually found on a work train at Baulmes

A train to Lausanne, then Vevey and then narrow gauge to Blonay saw us with plenty of time to catch a museum train to the Chamby Rail Museum.

Blonay - rack equipped railcar about to enter the rack section

Blonay

Blonay

Blonay - car returning to Vevey

This car took us to the museum

 We had an excellent lunch in the museum

This was a "croute" - a piece of bread with lots of cheese

Lamb with potato etc

This car took us back to the "main line" (albeit narrow gauge) at Blonay

We returned to Blonay to take the rack section of the narrow gauge up to Les Pleiades where there were some excellent views across towards the French mountains.

At Les Pleiades

We then returned directly to Vevey and returned to Yverdon via Lausanne. The weather has been hot and there is a fairly thick heat haze over Lac Leman. Even so the views of the vineyards were excellent.

There was a little time in the evening top take a trip up  to Ste. Croix on the narrow gauge,

THe climb up the mountain above Baulmes is always spectacular.On the way back we saw two mountain goats, two deer and a fox. The new trains run well but there are some track problems in some areas which give a very poor ride.