The story
The MO was granted a concession to build a standard gauge line from Martigny to Orsières in 1906. The railway company was established as a result of British Aluminium's plan to build an aluminum plant in Orsières. The ground-breaking ceremony was held on 23 July 1907 and operations commenced on 1 September 1910. The railway has been electrified at 8000 V 15 Hz AC since the beginning of operations. Traffic remained modest because neither the aluminium works nor the planned connection to the Aosta Valley were built. The MO was one of the first railway companies to supplement its rail activity with bus operations. The railway was later nationalised.
The line was converted to SBB's 15 kV AC railway electrification system on 4 March 1949. This meant that traction vehicles of the SBB could also be used on the MO. The branch line from Sembrancher to Le Châble was opened on 5 August 1953 and served the construction of the Mauvoisin power station. The cement trains were hauled by SBB locomotives.
Originally goods traffic dominated operations on the MO. Since the 1970s, growing tourism has led to increased passenger traffic.
Two ABDe 4/4 railcars (6 and 8) collided front on at Martigny-Bourg on 1 September 1984. The train driver started towards Orsières despite the exit signal being at danger. The driver and five passengers were killed and 24 people were injured. The two railcars were rebuilt. The destroyed Bt 31 control car was replaced by a similar vehicle from the Régional du Val-de-Travers (RVT).
The MO merged with the Martigny-Châtelard Railway to form the Transports de Martigny et Régions (TMR) on 1 January 2000.
From Wikipedia’s article on Martigny–Orsières Railway, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.3