Brienz-Rothorn Bahn

[rogerfarnworth]

In 2004, my wife and I travelled on this line. It was amazing! Here is a link to a few photographs and a video:

https://rogerfarnworth.wordpress.com/2018/04/11/the-brienz-rothorn-bahn-switzerland/

and this amazing model seems to be based on it? I found it on a French forum to which I belong.

Any other pictures and stories?

 

[Calthrop]

Great pictures -- thanks. I've seen only the opening few minutes of the video attached to your blog; my own computer is acting up at present.

The Brienz - Rothorn has of course long been famous as Switzerland's only remaining steam rack line -- and, perfectly legitimately, trades on that characteristic. I understand that, unlike our Snowdon Mountain Ry. these days, it is genuinely mostly steam-worked: has only a few diesel locos, and significantly more steam.

Morgan in The End of the Line gives the Brienz - Rothorn a brief appreciative mention -- it's unclear whether he actually travelled on it. (He has pungent things to say about the extreme costliness of Swiss mountain-railway fares.) He commemorates in TEotL -- a little prematurely re the book's 1955 publication date -- the end of steam on the last-but-one steam rack line in Switzerland: that up Monte Generoso near the Italian border. Said line switched, unusually, not to electric but to diesel traction; but as at 1955, the changeover was not yet complete. I gather that the Monte Generoso line was at last electrified in the 1980s; and that one of the Brienz line's steam locos is ex-Monte Generoso.

 

[eastwestdivide]

It might be steam, but one high-tech feature much appreciated is the flat-screen display at the bottom showing you live pictures of what conditions are like at the top.
When we saw the cloud and rain, we made a decision to come back another year. Despite the cancellation of a couple of trips due to a lack of passengers, there were still two engines in steam at the bottom that day.