Brienz Rothorn Railway

Most Swiss mountain railways went electric long ago; the Brienz Rothorn Railway never did. Opened on 17 June 1892 after two years of construction, the line climbs 7.6 km from the shore of Lake Brienz to a summit station at 2,244 metres, and most of its trains are still pushed up the mountain by steam locomotives. Between 1953 and 1990 it was the only steam-operated line in Switzerland, and it remains the highest railway in Europe without overhead wires. The track is narrow, just 800 mm between the rails, and gradients reach 25 per cent — one in four — so a toothed rack of the Abt double-lamella type runs down the middle, gripped by a cog wheel under the engine.

The journey takes about 55 minutes, and it is the slowness that makes it. The train leaves Brienz at 566 metres, by the lake, and works its way up through forest and meadow, pausing at the passing loops of Geldried, Planalp and Oberstafel, where trains going up and down meet. The engines work hard on the grade, trailing smoke and steam into the alpine air. Higher up the trees thin out into open pasture and rock, and the turquoise surface of the lake drops further and further below.

The line has had its setbacks: it closed at the outbreak of the First World War in August 1914 and stayed shut for seventeen years until June 1931. Since then it has run every summer season, and the arrival at the top is the reward for its persistence — a broad panorama over Lake Brienz and the surrounding mountains of the Bernese Oberland, from a ridge that feels remote even though the valley station is less than an hour away.

Getting there

The valley station is in the village of Brienz, next to the main railway station, where the line connects with trains on the Brünig line and with boats on Lake Brienz. The nearest airport is Bern Airport (BRN), about 43 km away.