A Visit to the Albula Railway Museum Wednesday 21 August 2024

 Getting there was most of the fun.

Our train waiting for us at Landquart

Our journey to Bergun on the Rhaetian Railway to visit the Railway Museum there was not the most direct. We caught a train from Zurich through Sargans to Landquart where we transferred to the narrow gauge Rhaetian Railway whose trains are always clean and a vivid red colour. The plan was to go to Sagliains (pronounced Sally Anne) and change to a train for Samedan. There would be a half hour layover there before catching another train through the brand new Albula Tunnel and on Bergun. When we got on at Landquart we were told there was a problem on the line between Saigliains and Samedan and that a substitute bus would be provided. (I asked "Derailment?" to which he replied "Technical problem". We thought it through carefully and decided to stick with the plan.

At Saigliains the timetable told us we would have a two minute connection but the connecting train was 14 minutes late. This took us to a flag stop called Zuoz where we were told to get out and join the connecting bus - a Post Bus. This roared along the highway at high speed and managed to get through the small villages with very narrow streets. We arrived at Samedan about 20 minutes late but we had a 30 minute connection anyway. After ten minutes the connecting train arrived and took us to Bergun with an arrival precisely according to the timetable.

The substitute bus at Samedan

The section from Samedan was the part I really wanted to sample. The first part was the new Albula tunnel which has only be open a few weeks. But more interesting was the line from the tunnel at Preda to Bergun. It is an incredible feat of engineering as this map will show.

We arrived at lunch time and felt we deserved a meal. There is a restaurant at the museum. However. the menu is in German only and the staff did not speak English. We decided to have daily special which turned out to be a good decision as the kitchen did not seem to be putting out anything other than the special.

Salad

Deep fried cauliflower and deep fried cheese with fries.

Not the healthiest of meals but we felt we deserved it after the trials of getting there.

The Museum was interesting although the presentation was a little strange. There were many small bolt holes for the kids to climb through. There were a couple of full scale exhibits including a narrow gauge crocodile.

Narrow gauge crocodile

We didn't fancy a walk into the village on this hot day so we caught an earlier train back to Chur. The highlight of this part of the trip was the Landwasser Viaduct.

Looking back we were surprised to see a locomotive tacked on behind with three cars containing postal containers. In North America this would be known as a mixed train.

At Chur we found one of the early Re 4/4 locomotives in the Swiss Exhibition livery.

At Chur we had a choice of a train every 30 minutes back to Zurich. The first one proved to be a Twindexx which has a bad reputation for rough riding. We debated waiting another 30 minutes to take the next train. In the end we decided to sample the Twindexx. It turned out to be not too bad. There was more lateral movement but it generally ran smoothly for a double decker and ran up to 150 - 160 km/hour.

Our Twindexx at Chur

The day turned out pretty well although at one point is felt like we could have a disaster on our hands and I have learned another German word "Ersatzbus" means "Substitute Bus".