Lack of long tunnels

Many years ago I was reading about the building of the Bernina Pass line, and as I remember the story a specific decision was made to avoid long tunnels (and presumably accept a steeper profile) in order to make the line more scenic to tourists. Apparently tourist traffic was an important reasons for building the line. At the risk of saying the obvious, tourists are big business in Switzerland.

Thanks for the correction about the grade. I was aware seven percent is the max, but did not have a profile of what grades were where. The climb pictured sure looked like a good candidate for seven percent but I guess looks can be deceiving.

Another interesting difference is the Bernina Pass line from St. Moritz is DC, versus AC for I believe the rest of the RhB. So far as I know the locos are not dual powered and power changes at Pontrasina and St. Moritz to the railcar motors Brack mentioned. What I find interesting is that the DC railcar motors, which look pretty lightweight, have enough tractive effort to handle some freight on the seven percent in mixed trains.

Fascinating railway.

JBWX



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/18/2014 07:31AM by John West.