A Trip To See The Rhine Waterfalls

It has long been my wish to see the Rhine Waterfalls at Neuhausen am Rheinfall, Switzerland. At the end of February, I flew to Zürich. From there, I got a train to the cantonal capital, Schaffhausen. The waterfalls are only four kilometres from Schaffhausen's main station.

As my room was not available yet, I popped out to buy stamps for postcards to send to my friends. The main post office in Schaffhausen was conveniently located next to my hotel and opposite the station. I needed both stamps for European destinations and Worldwide destinations outside Europe.



After a short wait for my turn, I was helped by a friendly clerk. She wanted to check the tariffs for specific non-European destinations. Her colleague, however, reminded her that international mail tariffs commanded either a 'Europe' or 'Worldwide' stamp. My next question was whether Russia classified as 'Europe' or 'Worldwide'. The clerk responded it was 'Europe'. I then asked for ten of those and three 'Worldwide' stamps.



Aptly, the stamps she handed me were the 180 and 230 Rappen stamps of the 2022 'Schweizer Flusslandschaften' (Swiss fluvial landscapes) stamps. Better still, the 180 Rappen stamp depicted the Rhine, that was the objective of my journey, near Chur in the Graubünden canton. Ideally, it would have depicted the Rhine Waterfalls. The 230 Rappen stamp depicted the Doubs at Le Theusseret in the Jura canton.



The stamps came in folded self-adhesive blocks of ten stamps. The rouletting for the folds divided the 'blocks' in multiples of two stamps. The clerk asked me whether four 'Worldwide' stamps would be fine.It appears the clerk did not want to look for scissors to cut a single stamp from a block. I was fine with that as one of my colleagues' brother-in-law will happily add the surplus stamp to his collection.

In many European countries, post offices are exactly that. They are offices where you can post your mail. They may stock stamps. Frequently you can only buy cards or booklets containing multiple stamps of the same denomination. The further south and east you go, the more a post office tends to look like a stationers. They may stock envelopes and boxes of to be used in the mail. In some countries, post offices sell greetings cards, magazines, or even toys.

On a rare occasion, like some offices in France, they may have miniature sheets on sale. But they rarely cater for stamp collectors. Whilst waiting for my turn at the main post office in Schaffhausen, I looked around to see what they had on sale.




I found the post office catered both for the young stamp enthusiasts and not-so-young enthusiasts. Among the products for sale was edition 4/2022 of the Phila & Franco magazine. The magazine is issued for times a year in French, German, and Italian. It contains the adventures of Phila and Franco, facts about the mail and stamps, quizzes, and more. It also contains a First Day Cover, eight stamps and three postcards children can decorate.

Furthermore, there was a 2022 yearbook with stamps. An example without the stamp had been removed from the package to look through. There was a 2022 year pack (red) and a stamp pack (blue) containing stamps issued during a period.

I could not resist buying a stamp pack. This one is numbered 4/2022 and on the back it says it was issued in November 2022. It contains ten postage stamps and is sold at SFr. 13.85. I count a total franking value of SFr. 12.30. It includes two 'Pro Juventute' stamps surcharged Sfr. 1, in total. Consequently, there is a charge of 55 Rappen for the pack itself.




The packs also exist with cancelled stamps.

I suspect you were hoping for this CH stamp...


Spring is a better time to see the Rhein Falls in full flow, so to speak.

The stamp envelopes are quarterly, number 4/22 corresponds to the 4th quarter of 2022.

It would have been nice. I just bought it to give to a friend who is interested. That would have been a very inconvenient stamp to use for postage on my postcards. Sticking 18 or 23 of them on a picture postcard would not leave space to write something.




That would be logical.

In 2021, @bookbndrbob posted this stamp cancelled at Basel's Badischer Bahnhof.



https://goscf.com/t/8094&whichpage=32#707264

Walking from the bus stop at Neuhausen am Rheinfall to the waterfall, I saw a sign pointing towards the "Bahnhof DB". Originally Deutsche Bundesbahn, and currently Deutsche Bahn, DB is the main railway company of the Federal Republic of Germany - hence Bundesbahn -. The canton is almost fully encircled by the state of Baden-Württemberg. The Rheinfall is very close to the German border.

In addition to the two Swiss 'SBB' stations in Neuhausen, this third, German station is known as 'Neuhausen Badischer Bahnhof".

Will a similar cancellation pop up with the name of that station?



I stayed at the 'Bahnhof Hotel' in Schaffhausen, accross the road from the main station in Schaffhausen (depicted above). In addition to bus services, there are regular trains to four - there is another one - stations near the Rheinfall from Schaffhausen Bahnhof.

The bridge in the stamp posted by @BobInRye is a railway bridge on the Zürich - Winterthur - Schaffhausen railway lines. The fourth station is just to the right of the waterfall. On both sides, there are footpaths. One was closed for the winter. You can cross the Rhine from Neuhausen to Schloss Laufen. From there, you can get to within a few metres of the waterfall.

Looking out of my hotel-room window, I noticed something odd about the façade of the station. It said Deutsche Bundesbahn. I was not aware Schaffhausen had been German. It has not.



Clearly, this used to be a border station with an entrance for the train service across the border and an entrance for the train service into Switzerland.

How about a German stamp cancelled at Schaffhausen?



I am old enough to remember borders. Nowadays, we are not so keen on borders in Europe. At Zürich Airport, there was no check at all. But a few decades ago you would have to show your passport when crossing the border by train. Sometimes, that meant alighting at a border station, passing the border check and board further along the platform.

During my lifetime, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxemburg never had such borders. Checks were random. At the turn of the century, checks at the German border were done during the ride across the border. Now, your only worry is whether customs will walk through the train with a sniffer dog. If not, you can catch a train to the Netherlands, buy weed, ride home, and enjoy it in another country.

In 1849, the postal network diligence was established. Its mail coaches carried passengers and mail. In 1906, the first Postauto service was established between Berne and Detlingen. The PostAuto was the motorised successor of the mail coach. Towards the end of the twentieth century, PostAuto, primarily, operated as a public transport company.

Today, PostAuto is a public transport company owned by the Swiss postal services. Their iconic busses with yellow livery, the red stripe below the windows, stylised post horn logo, and three-toned horn almost exclusively carry passengers.

Line 634 calls at Schaffhausen's main railway station. It connects it with Schloss Laufen am Rheinfall. The castle sits on a rock overlooking the waterfall.

Schaffhausen

The town itself has a historic centre. Many of the houses have oriels.
The Münster church left tower dates to the eleventh century, when the town received its charter. To the right is the tower of the town's parish church that, already, was documented when the town received its charter.



Just to the left of the Münster's tower are two high-rises hidden behind the trees. They stand on the bank of the Rhine a few hundred metres past the waterfalls.

@BobInRye's stamp as it looks in real life.

The 'Rheinfall' and Schloss Laufen (destination of the PostAuto shown above).

To the left of the castle is an elevator. At its bottom is the train station on the Zürich - Winterthur - Schaffhausen line mentioned earlier. From there, you can descend to the foot of the waterfall (5 SFr.).

And the destination of the journey.