The Illinois-Iowa Railfan

Happy Holidays!

Hello everyone,

The time has come once again for me to search for that perfect Holiday e-card to send out to everyone like I always do. I searched all of my photos and none of them really caught my eye as much as this one did, sure, it may not be the perfect shot with snow falling as a train glides past, but to me this photo is truly one-of-a-kind. The photo does not have much show at all, actually the only snow you will see is covering the Swiss Alps in the upper part of the photo while the worlds steepest cog railway climbs Mt. Pilatus below. The date is May 11th, 2007 and I’m standing on the top of 7,000’ Mt. Pilatus in Switzerland overlooking the Alps, Lake Lucerne, the city of Lucerne and the never-ending beauty of this amazing country!

The Pilatus Railway or Pilatusbahn (PB) is a mountain railway in Switzerland and is the steepest cog railway in the world, with a maximum gradient of 48%. The line runs from Alpnachstad, on Lake Lucerne, to a terminus near the summit of Mount Pilatus at an altitude of 6994ft. At Alpnachstad, the Pilatus Railway connects with steamers on Lake Lucerne and with trains on the Brünigbahn line of Zentralbahn.

The line is 2.9 mi long and climbs a vertical distance of 5344ft, and has a rail gauge of 2 ft 7½ in. The line was opened using steam traction in 1889. The maximum gradient of 48% meant that none of the then available rack designs were up to the job, and the line's engineer, Eduard Locher, developed a rack design specifically for this line. In the Locher system, the cog wheels on the train are mounted on vertical axles and their teeth engage with gear teeth cut in the sides, rather than the top, of the rack rail. Because of this system, there are no conventional points or switches on the line, only rotary switches and traversers.

The line was electrified in 1937, using an overhead electric supply of 1550 Volts DC.

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!!!