One for the railway buffs! In September of 2009, Sarah, my brother-in-law and I took my mother-in-law to Switzerland to celebrate her 80th birthday. One of the main parts of the holiday was a trip on the Jungfraubahn to the highest railway station in Europe at Jungfraujoch.
We started our journey from Wilderswil (584m) (near Interlaken) which was the nearest station to where we were staying, on the Berner Oberland Bahn, which is itself a narrow gauge (3ft 3/8in) mountain railway with rack assistance (using the Riggenbach system) on the steep bits. The B.O.B took us as far as Lauterbrunnen (795m), where we changed onto the Wengernalpbahn – another narrow gauge railway (2ft 71/2in) which at 19.09km is the world’s longest continuous rack and pinion (Strub system) railway. This took us through some really beautiful scenery and up some pretty serious gradients too. It feels really strange sitting on a train when you have to hold onto the seat to stop yourself falling out of it because the track is going up such a steep slope! This part of the journey lasted about 45 minutes and took us all the way up to Kleine Scheidegg (2061m).
At Kleine Scheidegg we transferred onto the Jungfraubahn proper to take us all the way to the top. The Jungfraubahn is a really hardcore piece of engineering – since most of the 9km of track is in tunnels though the Eiger and Mönch mountains, it was designed from the outset to be electrified. It is narrow gauge (3ft 3/8in) and once again uses the strub system of rack assistance. Two of the stations (Eigernordwand (2864m) and Eismeer (3158m)) are actually within the mountains themselves. Passengers can disembark and view the surrounding mountains through windows fitted into the mountainside. After another 45 minutes or so, we arrived at the Jungfraujoch station at 3454 metres or 11332 feet above sea level. The altitude took a bit of getting used to – making us all feel a bit light headed and breathless (I did wonder at the wisdom of bringing an 80 year-old to this altitude, but she seemed to be faring better than the rest of us, so I needn’t have worried!).
Having spent most of the journey travelling through a landscape of lush meadows and cows wearing proper swiss cow-bells, it felt quite strange to step out on to snow and ice of the Jungfraujoch (a col between the Mönch and Jungfrau mountains). The scenery is absolutely stunning – especially the other peaks around and the 14 mile long Great Aletsch Glacier. We took the lift up to the Sphinx Observatory, which at 3571 metres was the highest point of the trip, with beautiful views over the Swiss alps.
On the journey down, we went on the other branch of the Wengernalpbahn, taking us through more breathtaking scenery (proper hanging valleys – finally, my geography A-level coming in useful!) to Grindelwald (1034m) where we re-joined the Berner Oberland Bahn to take us back to Interlaken. It was a fantastic trip and I’d recommend it to anyone – it really is worth the eye-watering cost of the tickets.
