100 years of the Bernina Line

The year 2010 marked the hundredth anniversary of the Rhaetian Railway (RhB) and of the inauguration of the Bernina Line. Celebrations were held in all four seasons of the year along the 61 kilometres of the line - from Valposchiavo and Valtellina right up to Oberengadin. Europe’s steepest conventional wheel-adhesion railway (as opposed to a rack system), which runs to the highest point on the RhB at 2,253 metres above sea level, is aptly named after Piz Bernina, the tallest Alpine peak in the Swiss canton Graubünden. The Bernina Line has lost none of its fascination since the first train ran along it in 1910. On the contrary, thanks to the world-famous Bernina Express and the awarding in 2008 of UNESCO World Heritage status, it is now regarded as one of the world’s most outstanding railway experiences.

Electricity gets railways moving
The original Alpine drovers already knew how important the Bernina Pass was for the vital passage of north-south trade and traffic across the mountains. And later post-coach drivers likewise had to struggle through the wild weather conditions of the high tracks, where many would become stranded in the winter snows. Such were the dangers of crossing the Bernina Pass. The first plans for a rail link between Valposchiavo and Engadin date back to the late nineteenth century. «The bustling friendly and commercial activities that link the canton Graubünden and Veltlin call out for a faster and more modern way of crossing the Bernina Pass…» reported the Schweiz. Bauzeitung, a Swiss construction-trade journal, in its 1912 edition. In fact, it then still took a horse-riding messenger a full nine hours to complete the journey between Samedan and Tirano. And time was money - just as it is now. With technical progress in the form of the newly-invented electric railway, it became possible to contemplate what is now the Bernina Line. The originators of the line went straight for electricity, rather than steam, to power the line that would provide the high-point, in all senses of the term, of the RhB. It was for this reason that the ambitious Bernina Line project was so intimately associated with the construction of the hydroelectric power plant at Brusio (nowadays part of Rätia Energy). From 1904 to 1907, the pioneering company built its hydroelectric plant in Valposchiavo. The RhB was therefore powered, right from day one, with renewable energy from Lake Bianco. As the concession document authorising the Bernina Line clearly states, «The electrical energy required to run the Bernina Line is to be supplied under favourable conditions» (quoted in the same Swiss construction-trade journal of 1912). Total construction costs were estimated to be 12 million Swiss francs, or 200,000 francs per kilometre. The enterprise started off in private hands, and the RhB did not take over full control of the Bernina Line until 1944.

Part of its mission was to offer the views worth seeing «along a cost-effective and yet safe line»
If there wasn’t a Bernina Line, someone would simply have to invent it, although it would realistically have been difficult to find civil engineers nowadays willing to undertake such a complex project involving the route in question. The visionary pioneers had one thing clear from the start: the Bernina Line was to offer trading links between Valposchiavo, Valtellina and Engadin and the northern part of Graubünden, but it was also to be a tourist attraction in its own right. As our building-trade journal from 1912 put it: «The project sought to find a cost-efficient and yet safe route that would give the line the character of a tourist attraction, offering the best-possible views, from the comfort of the train, of the many-fold natural beauties of the area». Indeed, the Bernina massif, Lake Bianco, the Palü glacier and the stone mills of Cavaglia are all spaced out like a string of pearls along the steep route that runs from north to south, and which takes just two hours to cover. A point worth noting: The locomotives of the RhB cover the entire route without the use of toothed wheels - thanks to the classic physical property of adhesion. The difference in altitude that has to be tackled on the southern stretch amounts to 1,824 metres. The top-most point, at 2,253 metres above see level, in Bernina Ospizio, also marks a boundary between waters, weather systems and languages.

The line’s outstanding reputation has now been reinforced by recognition as a UNESCO World Heritage site
The RhB has always provided an outstanding railway experience, with the raw charm of its setting among the high Alpine landscapes of the Swiss canton Graubünden. An annual total of more than 700,000 passengers nowadays come from all over the world to sample the delightful repertoire of the Bernina Line. National Geographic Magazine considers the Bernina Line to be one of the world’s ten most beautiful railways. The year 2008 saw the incorporation of the Bernina Line - along with the Albula Line - into UNESCO’s catalogue of World Heritage sites, making it one of a select group of just three railways that are listed worldwide. The observation-car trains of the Bernina Express have been delighting passengers for several decades on the four-hour run from Chur to Tirano, which passes through three language regions, over 196 bridges and viaducts and through 55 tunnels and cuttings - linking a land of icy glaciers to a valley of swaying palms.

How the Japanese came to learn from the Swiss
It was in 1912 that an engineer named Handa visited Switzerland. He had been sent by the Hakone Tozan Railway (HTR) to find examples that could be applied to creating a line in the topographically difficult area of Hakone, a popular tourist region south of Tokyo. He was successful in his mission, thanks to the RhB and the Bernina Line. He was thoroughly impressed by the adhesion system used to operate the Bernina Line, and the Hakone Line was duly constructed on the same principle as its Swiss counterpart. The Bernina Line of the Rhaetian Railway and the HTR have been twinned since 1979. Outward manifestations of this partnership include the station signs at St. Moritz, Alp Grüm and Tirano, which are also in Japanese script. Since 1991, RhB railcar ABe 4/4 no. 54 has carried the name «Hakone», naturally accompanied by the Japanese national symbol of the rising sun.

A true one-off: The world’s only self-propelled, steam-powered snowplough
The Bernina Line was not originally supposed to operate all year round, given the respect for the terrors of nature along its high-altitude route. But the mild winter of 1909/10 made continuous operation possible, allowing trains to run - despite large quantities of snow - on the section from St. Moritz to the line’s highest point at Ospizio Bernina. The railway’s management board then decided in 1910 - once the line to Tirano had been finished - to acquire a snowplough. It first came into use in the winter of 1910/11, and proved to be a wondrous piece of technology, capable of cutting the considerable costs normally associated with snow-clearing. After the building of various protective structures, the Bernina Line started true all-year operations in 1913. Steam snowplough Xrot d 9213 is still capable of handling thick falls of snow, while operating special railway enthusiasts’ runs as the only locomotive of its type in the world. Steam snowplough Xrot will naturally be taking part in this year of celebrations, with live-steam days programmed for 30th January and 27th February 2010.