Railpass roundup ’09

by Jay Brunhouse

The thrills of my two most memorable European train trips still vibrate in my mind.

Whether racing down sheer mountainous slopes only feet above a raging, emerald-tinted mountain stream to the idyllic Romsdalsfjord below ominous troll summits rising 6,000 feet or whether suddenly flying out of a 7,000-foot black tunnel onto a naked viaduct seemingly suspended in space or whether watching a spiral stone viaduct appear around the bend ahead and puzzling, ‘How am I finally going to reach the valley floor?,’ the excitement never vanishes.

These two most sharply remembered trips occurred in 1988 in Norway and Switzerland when I was researching the first edition of “Traveling the Eurail Express.” This is no coincidence, because spectacular scenery and the trains twisting through it fill the eye in these two mountainous countries.

Norway’s Rauma Railroad

Below you, the dramatic Rauma River in middle Norway dashes with all the gusto of a Norwegian hare, tumbling down over steep precipices and slabs of granite.

Entering the Kylling Tunnel, you sweep into the mountain and below the highway in a sweeping, shallow curve 1,500 feet long and so gentle you don’t feel it. Back into daylight, you cross Kylling Bridge over a narrow gorge and see again the Rauma River, now frothing and foaming untamed only feet below.

The brightly colored river snakes around pebbly white islets and sandbars of white granite powder and jumps across rapids trailing glorious white, bubbling wakes.

At this point, you have reached the descent’s third and lowest level and finally you can look back on this ingeniously engineered line from below. The complex double curve made the Rauma line between Dombås at 2,493 feet and Åndalsnes at sea level about five miles longer but allowed you to descend safely.

While the Rauma River gradually tires and meanders calmly through wide gentle bends, the mountain scenery by contrast turns starker and more rugged and you enter a new episode in the adventure of the Rauma Railroad. You are now looking up at triple-tongued, monstrous waterfalls thundering down at you while you travel at the foot of the towering Troll Wall (Trollvegen), the tallest rock face in Europe, that according to legend was formed by trolls turned to stone.

You have passed from one spectacular phase into still another, differently wondrous. Passengers run from side to side of your diesel unit pointing and shouting to each other with delight. One lady, her hair blowing wildly as she leans out the window, shouts, “This is the most beautiful ride in the world!”

Switzerland’s Bernina Railway

Racing southward through Graubünden canton in far-eastern Switzerland, you quickly glimpse ahead the five classic arches of the elegant 1903 Landwasser viaduct curving to the right over the river far below. Suddenly soaring high over the treetops, you roar across an invisible viaduct without guard railings into the black Landwasser tunnel’s cliff face, your Bernina Line train throttled wide open. It is like flying with no parachute.

Your adventure continues farther down the St. Moritz-Tirano Bernina Line. You descend to the right in a semicircle, your train’s wheels screeching, below Alp Grüm Station to the 833-foot Palü Tunnel, in which you make a three-quarter turn and emerge down the mountain.

For a second time you pass below the Bellavista terrace into the 948-foot Stabline Tunnel, emerging on the back slope of Alp Grüm before doubling back through the 745-foot Pila Tunnel and returning below the terrace for a third time.

In less than 10 minutes you have descended to Cavaglia (5,553 feet). Looking up, you see the restaurant at Alp Grüm, now 1,305 feet above you. The forests have turned to deciduous trees — hazel, aspen, alder and birch.

Your final approach to Poschiavo is the most miraculous of all. Your train makes four zigzags and tunnel turnarounds. You see Poschiavo first on the left and then four more times on your right while your train loops above the towers of the city. Excited photographers race back and forth across the carriage in order to capture every inch of the kaleidoscopic scenery, exclaiming, “Why am I always on the wrong side?”

Past Mira Lago (whose name, “Look at the Lake,” refers to your view), you again descend steeply. After passing Brusio, you approach one of the world’s most amazing loops across a raised, corkscrew stone viaduct having a radius of only 164 feet. Photographers elbow one another for space to shoot at the windows. Nearby highway traffic comes to a standstill while drivers and their passengers watch you descend.

Even beyond speed, onboard service and extravagant comfort, excitement, for me, is trump, even 21 years later.