Mountain route
Wendelsteinbahn
Brannenburg → Wendelstein · Germany
Wendelsteinbahn in pictures
Photographs by their authors, hosted on Wikimedia Commons · tap through for the licence
- Distance
- 8 km
- Fastest time
- 55 min
- Average speed
- 9 km/h
- Top speed
- 25 km/h
- Operator
- Wendelsteinbahn
- Train
- Rack railcar
- Countries
- Germany
- In service since
- 1912
- Runs
- hourly in season
- Highest point
- 1,723 m
Figures are published values, not live data · corrections log
Bavaria’s oldest high-mountain railway of 1912 racks up from Brannenburg through tunnels and 25% grades toward the Wendelstein’s summit cave, observatory and panorama over the Inn valley.
Bavaria’s oldest high-mountain railway opened in 1912, engineered by Otto von Steinbeis on the Abt rack system. From Brannenburg in the Inn valley the little railcars claw up gradients of 25 percent through spiralling tunnels to the upper terminus near the Wendelstein’s peak, where a summit cave, a tiny 1890 church and a solar observatory await. A cable car climbs the other side from Bayrischzell.
How this line was checked
- Line drawn from OpenStreetMap relation 1331902 — the same nodes OpenStreetMap holds for this railway, thinned to within under 25 m of them
- Checked against OpenStreetMap: the whole line lies on real track, a median 3 m from it
- The operator publishes this line's timetable: Wendelsteinbahn — a place to look it up, not a check of our drawing
- Wikipedia has an article for this line
Along the way
- Brannenburg valley station
- Spiral tunnels on the Abt rack
- Wendelstein summit church
- Solar observatory & cave
- Panorama over the Inn valley and Alps
More mountain routes
- Jungfraubahn
Tunnels INSIDE the Eiger to Europe’s highest station at 3,454 m, the “Top of Europe” since 1912.
Wikipedia ↗ - Nilgiri Mountain Railway
India’s only rack railway: X-class steam pushes the blue coaches up 1-in-12 grades from palm plains to Ooty’s tea hills; UNESCO-listed in 2005.
Wikipedia ↗ - West Coast Wilderness Railway
The 1896 copper railway hauls itself up 1-in-16 grades on Abt rack cogs, steaming once more from Queenstown’s bare hills into the King River rainforest.
Wikipedia ↗ - Gornergrat Bahn
Europe’s highest open-air railway climbs from Zermatt to 3,089 m: the Matterhorn framed in the window from the first curve to the summit ridge.
Wikipedia ↗
More train routes in Germany.