Why Switzerland built a 2-kilometer train
(CNN) — High in the Swiss Alps, St. Moritz has made a name for itself as a place that pushes the boundaries of winter sports. By the time it hosted the second Winter Olympics in 1928, its reputation as a playground for wealthy adventurers was already well established.
On Saturday, the region continued its long tradition of pushing the boundaries of what is possible with an epic world record attempt – not on snow or ice, but on rails.
To mark the 175th anniversary of Switzerland’s first railway, the country’s railway industry has joined forces to operate the world’s longest passenger train ever – 100 carriages, 2,990 tons and almost two kilometers long.
The record-breaking train, consisting of 25 new “Capricorn” electric trains with a length of 1,906 meters, needed around 25 kilometers over the spectacular Albula Line, which is part of the UNESCO World Heritage, for the approximately 25-kilometer route from Preda to Alvaneu in eastern Switzerland.
Like the legendary Cresta Run toboggan run, the Albula line is also famous for its endless curves and steep descents. A world-renowned feat of civil engineering, the 62-kilometer stretch between Thusis and St. Moritz was built in just five years, despite requiring 55 bridges and 39 tunnels.
Before its completion in July 1904, visitors had to face a risky 14-hour journey over bumpy roads in horse-drawn carriages or sleighs.
The heart of the route is the 5,866 meter long Albula Tunnel, which runs deep under the watershed between the Rhine and the Danube.
Spirals, towering viaducts and tunnels
The train spiraled down a serpentine of tracks through the mountains.
swiss-image.ch/Philipp Schmidli
On part of the route that the world-famous Glacier Express has been running since 1930, the world record attempt led to the spectacular Landwasser Viaduct and the extraordinary spirals, which secured the route international heritage status.
In less than 25 kilometers, the train plummeted from 1,788 meters above sea level in Preda to 999.3 meters in Alvaneu, using a series of spirals, towering viaducts and tunnels.
Organized by the Rhaetian Railway (RhB) with support from Swiss railway builder Stadler, the record attempt is perhaps even more amazing because it took place on a narrow-gauge railway.
Unlike most Swiss and European railways, which use the “normal” track gauge between the rails of 1,435 meters (4 ft 8.5 in), the RhB’s rails are only one meter apart.
Combine this with a track featuring notoriously tight corners, steep grades, 22 tunnels and 48 bridges over deep valleys and the challenges become apparent.
Former holders of the world’s longest passenger train record – Belgium and before that the Netherlands – took advantage of standard gauge railways across flat landscapes.
However, months before the RhB event, preparations began, including test runs, to ensure the unique train could be operated safely.
“We all know the Albula line very well, every change of gradient, every gradient,” said leading driver Andreas Kramer, 46, before the big day. “Of course we go through the process again and again.”
He added: “We need to be 100% in sync every second. Everyone needs to keep their speed and other systems under control at all times.”
A first test run failed even before the train had set off when it was found that the emergency braking system could not be activated and the seven drivers in the many tunnels could not communicate with each other by radio or mobile phone.
Kramer, assisted by six other drivers and 21 technicians, instead used a temporary field phone system set up by the Swiss civil defense to maintain communications as the train traveled through countless tunnels and deep valleys at speeds of up to 35 km/h.
Specially adapted software and an intercom system between the seven drivers enabled the 25 trains to interact harmoniously. Any discrepancy in acceleration or deceleration during travel would have placed unacceptably high forces on tracks and power supplies, creating a major safety problem.
RhB director Renato Fasciati said: “Switzerland is a railway country like no other. This year we are celebrating 175 years of Swiss railways. With this world record attempt, the RhB and its partners wanted to contribute their part to a pioneering achievement that has never been seen before.”
party mood
![The train consisted of 100 wagons.](https://dynaimage.cdn.cnn.com/cnn/e_blur:500,q_auto:low,w_50,c_fill,g_auto,h_28,ar_16:9/http%3A%2F%2Fcdn.cnn.com%2Fcnnnext%2Fdam%2Fassets%2F221029160602-04-longest-passenger-train-switzerland.jpg)
The train consisted of 100 wagons.
Fabrice Coffrini/AFP/Getty Images
On the long descent, speed was controlled by regenerative braking, similar to some electric cars that fed power back into the 11,000-volt overhead wires.
However, with so many trains on the same stretch of track, there were concerns that they could feed too much power back into the system, which could overload both trains and local power grids. To avoid this, the maximum speed of the train was limited to 35 km/h and the software had to be modified to limit the backfeed.
Also, additional safety control cables had to be run throughout the train to support the standard mechanical and pneumatic connections between trains.
On the big day, the RhB organized a railway festival in Bergün and 3,000 lucky ticket holders were able to experience the record attempt via live TV broadcast and enjoy local entertainment and gastronomy. Normal traffic through the Albula Tunnel to St. Moritz and beyond was suspended for 12 hours.
Three satellite uplinks, 19 cameras in drones and helicopters on board and along the route filmed the train and provided a unique recording of this once in a lifetime event. This alone was a major challenge in a remote mountainous region with limited cellular coverage.
A railway nation
![The record attempt was organized on the occasion of the 175th anniversary of the Swiss railways.](https://dynaimage.cdn.cnn.com/cnn/e_blur:500,q_auto:low,w_50,c_fill,g_auto,h_28,ar_16:9/http%3A%2F%2Fcdn.cnn.com%2Fcnnnext%2Fdam%2Fassets%2F221029160600-02-longest-passenger-train-switzerland.jpg)
The record attempt was organized on the occasion of the 175th anniversary of the Swiss railways.
Fabrice Coffrini/AFP/Getty Images
For a small country with a mountainous landscape that at first seems unsuitable for railroads, Switzerland punches far above its weight in industry.
Necessity has long made it a pioneer in electrical, mechanical and civil engineering and its technology and know-how are exported all over the world.
The Swiss are the world’s most avid train users for good reason, traveling an average of 2450 kilometers by train each year – a quarter of their total annual total. As in other European countries, mobility has exploded in recent decades – the average annual distance traveled by car and public transport has doubled in the last 50 years.
They covered 19.7 billion passenger kilometers by train in 2019, the last “normal” year before the Covid 19 pandemic. In 2021, that number fell to 12.5 billion passenger-kilometres, but as Switzerland celebrates the 175th anniversary since the opening of the first railway between Zurich and Baden, ridership is on track to regain pre-pandemic levels.
The expectations of public transport users in Switzerland are so high that even a small delay causes slight dissatisfaction. And not without reason; Many journeys in and around Switzerland’s largest cities are multimodal and rely on smooth connections between trains, trams, buses and even ships at well-organized transfer points.
In 2021, the Swiss Federal Railways (SBB) operated 11,260 trains with 880,000 passengers and 185,000 tons of freight per day on a 3,265-kilometer network with 804 stations.
If you add the more than 70 “private” standard and narrow-gauge railways, many of which are also wholly or partly publicly owned, the network is the densest rail network in the world at around 5,300 kilometers.
Decades of long-term investment have created a core network of heavily used mainline routes connecting all of the country’s major cities. It feeds high-frequency commuter rail systems in major cities, as well as regional and local rail lines, trams and mountain railways, many of which provide vital links to the outside world for rural and high-altitude communities.
Despite massive investments in the last four decades through long-term expansion programs such as “Bahn 2000”. The Swiss railways fall victim to their own success. While SBB’s overall punctuality still seems impressive to outsiders, there are concerns about deteriorating performance, rising costs and its ability to fund vital maintenance and major projects following the devastating financial losses of 2020-21.
Disturbances on the SBB network are still comparatively rare, but reliability has decreased in recent years due to traffic jams, a lack of staff and the lack of punctuality of trains from neighboring countries.
strategic position
![BERGUEN,OCT2922 - Impression of the world record journey of the longest passenger train (1.91 kilometers) of the Rhaetian Railway on the UNESCO World Heritage route, the alpine Albula Line, in Graubünden on October 29, 2022](https://dynaimage.cdn.cnn.com/cnn/e_blur:500,q_auto:low,w_50,c_fill,g_auto,h_28,ar_16:9/http%3A%2F%2Fcdn.cnn.com%2Fcnnnext%2Fdam%2Fassets%2F221030000823-rhb-2-1.jpg)
The train fell almost 800 meters during its descent from the mountains.
MAYK WENDT
Located in the heart of Western Europe, between the industrial centers of Germany, France and Northern Italy, Switzerland also plays a key strategic role in the overall European economy – as it has since the Middle Ages.
For centuries the Alps presented a formidable barrier to travel and trade in this part of Europe, but over the past two decades billions of Swiss francs have been invested to build the long Gotthard and Lötschberg base tunnels deep beneath the Alps.
While other countries bicker and dither over public transport spending, the Swiss Federal Council opened consultations on its next program for long-term rail investments in June 2022. The Bahn 2050 perspective is a detailed bundle of proposals with a clear focus on the development of local and medium-distance passenger transport to promote people moving away from cars.
The expansion of the existing network to create additional capacities should be prioritized over larger infrastructure projects. Transport Minister Simonetta Sommaruga says: “It’s not about saving a few minutes on a regular route like Zurich-Bern. On such routes, the railway is already unbeatable. Rather, it is about expanding where the rails left off.”
Expected to come into effect by 2026, the plan aims to increase annual public transport use from 26 billion passenger-km to 38 billion passenger-km by 2050, increase rail’s share of the passenger and freight market “significantly” and ensure rail travel is guaranteed even more more closely linked with other modes of transport in order to offer everyone more mobility.
Critics often point to Switzerland’s smaller population and relatively short distances compared to countries like the UK and Germany, and claim that it is impossible to build similarly integrated public transport networks in larger countries.
It is true that the Swiss have built something ideally suited to their geography, culture and population density, but regardless of the arguments elsewhere, the RhB’s incredible performance on October 29th is a hugely impressive display of Switzerland’s world-class skills in the field of railway technology.