Pilatus Bahn Summit to Alpnachstad – Driver’s Eye View of the World's Steepest Cog Railway

After the disappointment of the days steam adventure being cancelled due to the hot weather, the day was nevertheless turning out to be a very good one. We’d been advised by our tour group leader to use our Swiss Rail passes to travel where ever the fancy took us and I’d opted to travel with another member of the group to Alpnachstad for a ride the World renowned Pilatus Cog Railway. Having arrived early, we had a chance to chat with one of the railway’s staff members who went out of her way to extend a warm welcome and tell us that the trains we were about to ride on were to be retired at the end of the season and that testing the replacement units had already started. In this video we cover the journey down the mountain having spent time enjoying the mountain top views and refreshments in the cafe. We chatted to the friendly Summit station staff whilst we waited for our train, it was nice to speak with people who clearly loved their railway and were keen to make sure we got the best out of our visit. The driver kindly allowed me to place a camera on the front window for the trip back down to Alpnachstad.
For people who have not watched the video of our trip up the mountain, I have copied and pasted the brief description I wrote about the railway’s history and the unusual Cog system devised especially for the railway –

The Pilatus Railway (German: Pilatusbahn) located in Switzerland is the steepest rack railway in the world, with a maximum gradient of 48% and an average gradient of 35%. Alpnachstad is the lower terminus where it connects with regular boat services on Lake Alpnach and the Brünig railway’s trains to Lucerne and Interlaken. The upper terminus near the Esel summit of Pilatus is at an elevation of 2,073 m (6,801 ft) Eduard Locher proposed a railway with the maximum grade of 48%, conventional rack systems in use at the time were not thought capable of coping with such gradients owing to the risk of the cog wheel jumping out of the teeth on the rack rail resulting in the loss of both the ability to drive or brake the train. To overcome this problem Locher devised a system where the rack was placed horizontally between the tracks with the teeth cut on both outside edges facing away from each other, two flanged cogwheels mounted on vertical shafts underneath the train engaged with the rack rail and flanges running under the rack prevented the cog from climbing out of engagement. Please click on this link to learn more about the Locher rack railway system - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eduard_... The system was also capable of guiding the car without the need for flanges on the wheels, indeed, the first cars on Pilatus had no flanges on running wheels, but they were later added to allow cars to be moved through tracks without rack rails during maintenance. Construction of the line began in March 1886 and the line opened on 4th June 1889, it was electrified at 1,650 V DC in 1937 with the trains taking power from an overhead wire. This video features the original 1937 trains in their last months of operation before the introduction of modern trains from Stadler. The 800 mm (2 ft 7+1⁄2 in) gauge line is 4.6 km (2.86 miles) long and climbs 1,629 m (5,344 ft) from start to finish and the original rack rails, now well over 100 years old are still used today, whilst they have become worn over the years, it was discovered that by turning them over they could be reused offering the potential of another 100 + years in service. The train’s electric motors are used as generators to act as brakes during the descent with the electricity generated being dissipated as heat through resistance grids. The railway was financed entirely with private capital and has remained financially viable throughout its life.

Filmed – 23.07.2022

To learn more about the railway or to book your own trip, please click on this link - https://www.pilatus.ch/en/discover/co...