Switzerland - Jungfraubahn JB

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The Jungfraubahn is in many ways a very peculiar railway. It's a meter gauge rack rail railway, nine kilometres long. More than seven kilometres of it runs inside a mountain, in a tunnel with a very steep slope. The line begins at Kleine Scheidegg, already at 2061 metres above sea level, and climbs all the way up to Jungfraujoch at 3454 metres above sea level. Kleine Scheidegg can only be reached by the trains of the Wengernalpbahn. But the Wengernalpbahn and Jungfraubahn are technically totally different. Wengernalpbahn is an 800 mm gauge rack railway electrified with 1500V DC, whereas the Jungfraubahn is metre gauge and uses the so called Strub rack rail system. Wengernalpbahn is built with the system Riggenbach rack rails. The Jungfraubahn was also built with a very special electric system: 1125V three-phase AC using two overhead catenary wires side by side, so that the trains also have two pantographs side by side. The line is also very steep. The incline is 25% at parts of the line.

This picture shows one of the most modern trains of the Jungfraubahn. This Bhe 4/8 no.221 is one of the four newest trains which Stadler built in 2016. It's a fixed three-coach unit.
Picture from Kleine Scheidegg 22.6.2019 by Johannes Erra.

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This is the Jungfraubahn depot at Kleine Scheidegg. In front of the building can be seen one of the two motor wagons 201/202 which were built in 1955. It must be no.202, since it has been reported that 201 was cut to pieces already in 2016. These wagons have not been used for the regular passenger traffic for many years any more, just merely for some shunting duties at Kleine Scheidegg.
Picture from Kleine Scheidegg 22.6.2019 by Johannes Erra.

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A Jungfraubahn train consisting of two BDhe 4/8 two-wagon units between Kleine Scheidegg (center) and Eigergletscher (not on picture); Swiss mountains of Lauberhorn (2472 m; left) and Tschuggen (2521 m; right) above Kleine Scheidegg.

Picture by David Gubler on 25.1.2013. David Gubler has licensed this picture to be used under the the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 and under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

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Jungfraubahn BDhe 4/8 at the Kleine Scheidegg railway station with the Eigernordwand in the background. There are four of these two-coach trains at Jungfraubahn and they are often used as pairs to creat a four-wagon combined unit.
Picture by English Wikipedia user "salamanamanjaro" 12.2.2012.

User "salamanamanjaro" has licensed this picture to be used under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

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Jungfraubahn has one station called Eismeer (sea of ice) inside the mountain between Kleine Scheidegg and the upper station at Jungfraujoch. Upwards climbing trains stop there for awhile to allow people to get out of the train to take pictures from windows cut in the mountain.

Picture by the Wikimedia user Stan Shebs in June 1996. Stan Shebs has licensed this picture to be used under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

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