Heritage Protection for a Survivor: Bern’s 132-Year-Old Steam Tram

The year 1894 was a busy one for global milestones: the International Olympic Committee was founded, the world's first automobile race ran from Paris to Rouen, and the Dreyfus affair began its long unraveling. During that same year, the first steam-powered tram rolled through the streets of the Swiss capital. The Bern Tramway Company had purchased eight steam locomotives and twelve trailers, all manufactured in Winterthur, to upgrade the city's public transport. Fast forward 132 years, and the Canton of Bern has officially placed one of these original machines, Locomotive No. 12, under heritage protection.

The reign of steam on the capital's streets proved remarkably brief. By 1902, barely eight years after the locomotive made its debut, the city had fully electrified its tram network. The steam engines were abruptly rendered obsolete, discarded in favor of a modern, electric grid. While most of the fleet was scrapped, Locomotive No. 12 embarked on a decades-long detour.

Banished from passenger service, the engine spent decades laboring as a work locomotive at a sawmill in Biel. It was later stored for a museum project that never materialized, eventually ending up outdoors at the Technorama in Winterthur. For years, the machine was left to rust, slowly deteriorating into a forgotten industrial relic. It was only in the 1990s that the ruin finally found its way back to Bern, triggering a complex restoration effort.

Bringing the tram back to life was an exercise in mechanical endurance. The foundation Bernmobil Historique, which now manages the vehicle, noted that the locomotive was in a ruinous state upon its return and had to be dismantled into its individual parts. Because spare parts for nineteenth-century steam trams do not exist on modern shelves, any broken mechanical component must be painstakingly repaired or manufactured by hand. Despite the immense labor required, the rebuilt machine has been running on selected days in Bern since 2002.

The cantonal monument conservation authority has now formally recognized this continuous, labor-intensive upkeep. Heritage officials emphasize that Locomotive No. 12 illustrates the motorization of local transport before 1900, capturing the brief transitional period between horse-drawn carriages and electricity. Out of 41 steam locomotives produced in this series, it is the sole operational survivor. The only other remaining unit, Number 18, sits permanently parked in Lucerne’s Swiss Museum of Transport. Bern’s protected moving monument remains a highly maintenance-intensive endeavor, quietly demonstrating the sheer administrative and financial effort required to keep a 132-year-old fire burning.

Written by Thomas Nussbaumer thomas.nussbaumer@alpineweekly.com