Scenic route
Bernina Express
Chur → Tirano · Switzerland · Italy
Bernina Express in pictures
Photographs by their authors, hosted on Wikimedia Commons · tap through for the licence
- Distance
- 144 km
- Fastest time
- ≈ 4 h
- Average speed
- 36 km/h
- Top speed
- 70 km/h
- Operator
- RhB
- Train
- Allegra panorama
- Countries
- Switzerland, Italy
- In service since
- 1910
- Runs
- 1× daily year-round, 2× in summer
- Highest point
- 2,253 m
- Riders per year
- ≈ 400k
Figures are published values, not live data · corrections log
A UNESCO World Heritage railway: 7 % grades with no rack, the Brusio spiral, and the highest rail crossing of the Alps at 2,253 m.
In about four hours the scenery runs from glacier to palm tree, a compression no other Alpine crossing manages. The Allegra units haul out of Chur through castle-studded Domleschg, thread the Albula’s helical tunnels above Bergün, then breast the open Bernina Pass where Lago Bianco lies chalk-blue beside the track. On the far side the line clings to Alp Grüm’s balcony and corkscrews down into Italian-speaking Val Poschiavo, finishing among Tirano’s espresso bars.
How this line was checked
- Line drawn from OpenStreetMap relation 20796925 — the same nodes OpenStreetMap holds for this railway, thinned to within 30 m of them
- Checked against OpenStreetMap: the whole line lies on real track, a median 10 m from it
- Checked against the running timetable via ÖBB Scotty: our line sits 0.1 km from the shape of PE BEX
- Wikipedia has an article for this line
Along the way
- Domleschg castle country
- Albula spirals above Bergün
- Morteratsch Glacier views
- Lago Bianco at Ospizio Bernina
- Alp Grüm balcony
- palm-fringed Tirano
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