Site admins:

Friends of the
Alpine Railways
c/o
Ilkka Siissalo
Nummenraitti 40
FI-04370 Rusutjärvi
Finland
Tel. +35840 8205380
ilkka.siissalo (ät) iki.fi

The type RABe502 of Swiss Federal Railways is the very newest InterCity train in Switzerland. The model is being built by Bombardier. It's a doubledecker train with active tilting, or rather, tilting compensation technology. Bombardier has had a lot of problems in getting this new type approved and the project is badly late. The first units are now in trial use in commercial traffic. Picture from Gossau station 4.7.2019 by Ilkka Siissalo.

What is this site?

This FUNET railway pictures archive is one of the oldest online sources of train and tram related photos. Its story began roughly at the same time as that of the www. In the meantime, several other good quality train picture sites have emerged, and for about a decade nothing happened here. Since 2016 we are now trying to make a revamp and start publishing here much more pictures than previously were available. The site got a new name, railpics.club, but the old and existing URL address http://www.nic.funet.fi/pub/pics/railways works nevertheless as well and leads you here.

This site is now maintained by members of a Finnish railways enthusiasts club, Alppirautatieharrastajat ry, or Friends of the Alpine Railways, together with some other voluntary railway hobbyists we got to know over Facebook. We want to express our gratitude to the Finnish academic network FUNET and FUNET's parent organisation CSC, for kindly providing us with the necessary server space.

What is the difference between this site and most of the other railways pictures sites? Firstly, the pictures are published "as is", that is, we have not done much photoshopping. Probably you can improve many of the photos if you have time and good photoshop skills. Newer pictures are also provided in a large format, "full size", whereas most other sites limit the resolution of pictures to a very small size to conserve disk space. All the material you can find here, you are welcome to use in any way you like, (with the exception of company copyrighted pictures specifically marked), but obviously it would be nice if you would mention the original photographer's name if you republish the material. And if you print any of these pictures for example in a magazine, the photographers would be delighted if you could post them a paper copy or pdf copy of your publication where the picture appeared. For this purpose you'll find the address and contact details of the chief admin at the top left of this front page. It's always nice to see one's own photos being used in a meaningful and useful way.

Picture categories

Please note that in all categories you can always get the full size picture by clicking on the thumbnail pictures !!

What is new? The latest additions

  • 7.3.2020 Added anew section for the Swiss narrow gauge railway LEB Lausanne-Echallens-Bercher
  • 2.3.2020 Added some German diesel locomotive pictures.
  • 26.2.2020 Added a new section for the small Swiss narrow gauge railway NStCM, Nyon - St. Cergue - La Cure.
  • 25.2.2020 Added more TGV Lyria pictures, pictures of French railbuses and some Swiss pictures. Added a category for Tilo, a Swiss/Italian joint venture.
  • 24.2.2020 Added some tram pictures from St.Petersburg and a category for Lyria, a Swiss/French joint venture of bullet train traffic.
  • 21.2.2020 Added new pictures of trams of Ulm, Germany and of Swiss SBB's trains.
  • 17.2.2020 Added a new section for the Swiss/French joint venture Leman Express. Added also tram pictures from Geneve and Bern.
  • 15.2.2020 Added old tram pictures by Eljas Pölhö. The pictures are from Wien, Graz and Helsinki.
  • 3.2.2020 Added a picture of a Czech Vectron in a special livery commemorating 100 years of Czech independence.
  • 26.1.2020 Added Switzerland > MOB-Montreux-Oberland Bernois / Golden Pass Line.
  • 21.1.2020 Added Switzerland > Bière-Apples-Morges narrow gauge railroad.
  • 19.1.2020 Added new pictures to Switzerland > FWB Frauenfeld-Wil-Bahn and to AB Appenzeller Bahnen.
  • 15.1.2020 Added a new category Switzerland > AB Appenzeller Bahnen and a lot of new pictures there. Contains also pictures of former railroad companies that were fused into AB.
  • 12.1.2020 Added a new category Switzerland > SOB Südostbahn and a lot of new pictures in it.
  • 6.1.2020 Added a historic picture of a Finnish VR Dm9 diesel multiple unit. Picture by Mikko Nyman.
  • 5.1.2020 Renewed the category Switzerland > Travys and published new pictures there.
  • 1.1.2020 Renewed the categories Switzerland > BVB Basel Verkehrsbetriebe (trams of Basel) and TCB Tramclub of Basel / historic trams of Basel area. Added a lot of pictures to both. Added the new category for trams of Bern also, but there's not yet much there.
  • To see the earlier updates of this site, please click here
This is the last picture added to the site

One of the new trains of the Swiss LEB Lausanne-Echallens-Bercher narrow gauge railway. This RBe 4/8 has been built by Stadler and it is a derivative of Stadler's FLIRT trains. LEB received 10 of these two-coach trains 2010-17 in two series and is said to have ordered more in 2019. Picture from the village of Bercher 7.6.2010 by Jan Oosterhuis. The picture was originally published at the German language Wikipedia under the Creative Commons 3.0 licence.

1950s and 2017 trains meeting. The new one is a Swiss made Stadler FLIRT and the old one is a 1950s class Dm7 railbus. Both have in turn been running the route Helsinki - Kerava. Picture from Kerava station in Finland 22.7.2017 by Otto Eemil Juntunen.

Last updated 7.3.2020 / is