Swiss Railway Facts

There's a great article today from Swiss Info about the railways of Basel.

Münchensteinerstrasse 115 in Basel has an interesting connection. I'm sure you wouldn't know what I was talking about until I mention something about a big brown copper tower as seen in the photo across the tracks.

What's interesting to me about the story was that I was that avid train rider who watched all of the architecture as I made my way into Basel main station or out towards Biel or Zurich.

Basel Main station is controlled by a big railway box, wrapped with copper strips that are twisted at just the right place in order to let in daylight.

What makes the building so unique is the copper coiling protects the sensitive electronic equipment of the signal box from lightning strikes. A pretty cool concept if you ask me, especially since the building is the main operations center for the Basel train system take care of French and German trains too. Of course most everything is controlled by big computer screens, but you'll just have to read the article to find out more.