About this journey

Zweisimmen station sits at 941 m elevation at the heart of the Simmental, serving as the gauge-change node of the GoldenPass corridor. On one side, the metre-gauge Montreux–Lenk im Simmental line operated by MOB arrives from the south and west; on the other, the standard-gauge BLS line — the Spiez-Erlenbach-Zweisimmen-Bahn — begins its descent toward Lake Thun. The journey from Zweisimmen to Interlaken follows that standard-gauge route, electrified at 15 kV 16.7 Hz AC overhead catenary and built in two stages: the first section from Spiez to Erlenbach opened on 16 August 1897, and the extension to Zweisimmen followed on 31 October 1902. In June 1997, the successor company SEZ — formed on 1 January 1942 — merged with three other Bernese private railways to become BLS AG, which has operated the 34.90 km single-track line ever since.

The line descends through the Simme valley, threading between the forested hillsides and agricultural floor of the Bernese Oberland with a maximum gradient of 2.5%, calling at stations including Weissenburg, Erlenbach im Simmental and Wimmis before reaching the junction at Spiez. There, the Spiez-Erlenbach-Zweisimmen-Bahn meets the BLS main lines: the Lötschberg route heading south and the Lake Thun line running east toward Interlaken. The RABe 528 MIKA, a Stadler Rail FLIRT 4 electric multiple unit that entered service with BLS in 2021, continues from Spiez along the northern shore of Lake Thun to reach Interlaken. The journey moves from an alpine valley terminus defined by its gauge-change engineering to the broad lakeside basin that marks one of the Bernese Oberland's principal rail crossroads.