Wengernalp Railway — rack railway
Kabelleger · CC BY-SA 4.0

Wengernalp Railway

Wengernalpbahn

  • 1 min read
  • 46.576° N 7.944° E

Interesting facts

  • The carriages have a fixed uphill and downhill end, with seats tilted to match the slope, so a train cannot simply run over the pass to the other valley.
  • For the same reason the motor car always sits at the downhill end of the train, a safety rule kept since electrification in 1909.
  • A turntable at Kleine Scheidegg was replaced in 1947 by a triangular junction whose tail track runs 110 metres into the mountain in a tunnel.
  • In its first season in 1893 the railway carried 37,742 passengers, with a fleet of eight steam locomotives and nine passenger coaches.
  • Early trains were one engine and one coach; at Wengen two coaches were coupled behind a single engine, and the spare engines ran back down for the next train.
  • The original 25 per cent line below Wengen survived for freight and empty trains until 2007, when an unstable sliding slope finally ended its use.
  • Until its closure, vintage trains ran on the old steep line each September during the Jungfrau Marathon, open to anyone with a normal ticket.
  • When steam ended, locomotive No. 1 was sold in 1911 to the Brienz Rothorn Railway; the other steam engines were scrapped.
  • Extra trains running close behind a scheduled one carry a green disc with a white diagonal stripe, warning staff that another train follows on the single track.

Why it is worth it

The Wengernalp Railway climbs from the valley of Lauterbrunnen over the pass of Kleine Scheidegg and down again to Grindelwald, right under the north faces of the Eiger, Mönch and Jungfrau. Opened in 1893, it runs for about 19 km and is the longest continuous rack railway in the world. The track is 800 mm gauge, with a rack between the rails that lets trains grip gradients as steep as 25 per cent. The line was built for steam and electrified in 1909 and 1910.

The ride is a sequence of set pieces. From Lauterbrunnen, a valley walled by cliffs and waterfalls, the train hauls itself up the western slope to Wengen, a resort village on a sunny terrace with no cars; for its residents the railway is the only way in. Above Wengen the line comes out on the open alpine pastures of Wengernalp, where the Jungfrau massif stands across the gorge startlingly close. The summit station at Kleine Scheidegg, at 2,061 metres, faces the Eiger north wall head-on, and from there the line drops past Alpiglen and Brandegg towards the green bowl of Grindelwald.

The railway belongs to the Jungfrau group of companies, and at Kleine Scheidegg passengers change to the Jungfrau Railway, which tunnels through the Eiger to the Jungfraujoch, the highest railway station in Europe. In winter the Wengernalp line serves the ski slopes around Wengen and Grindelwald. In practice trains run in two sections, from each valley up to Kleine Scheidegg, and most travellers combine both halves into a loop.

Getting there

Both ends of the line connect with the Bernese Oberland Railway, which runs from Interlaken Ost and splits at Zweilütschinen into branches for Lauterbrunnen and Grindelwald. The nearest larger town listed is Thun, 31.4 km away. The nearest airport is Bern (BRN), 50.6 km away.

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Nearby places

On these lists

The Most Beautiful Places in Bern 13The Most Beautiful Places in Switzerland 44The Most Spectacular Rack Railways in Switzerland 6The Most Spectacular Rack Railways 12The Greatest Engineering Wonders in Switzerland 21The Greatest Engineering Wonders 271

From the encyclopaedia

The Wengernalp Railway is a 19.11 kilometres (11.87 mi) long rack railway line in Switzerland. It runs from Lauterbrunnen to Grindelwald via Wengen and Kleine Scheidegg, making it the world's longest continuous rack and pinion railway. The name refers to the alpine meadow of Wengernalp, above Wengen.

Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

46.57611, 7.94389per Wikidata