Davos; Saturday, 16 April, 2022

My final day in Davos and I had a slightly later start than the previous days so I could have a bit of a lie in, a later breakfast and then an unhurried checkout from the hotel. I left my luggage with reception and headed on down to Davos Platz station. From there I caught the train back to Filisur, though now with the knowledge of where to look I was able to take photos of both the Wiesen viaduct on this line as well as a distant photo of the Landwasser Viaduct.

From Filisur I headed back up into the mountains on the Albula Line, though I only went one stop to the town of Bergün where I hopped off the train to visit the Bahnmuseum Albula which is based in a building next to the railway. The museum tells the history of all of the lines that form the modern-day Rhaetian Railways, including another line that has long since closed. The museum showed how the railways were built – through some very difficult terrain, making use of stunning tunnels and viaducts to link mountain communities together and help create the whole concept of Alpine tourism. The museum also shows how by 1914 the railway was running an electric service all year round up and over the 2250m Bernina Pass, despite all the snow and complications. Just a shame that over 100 years later the UK rail network is still brought to its knees by a single snowflake.

After taking in the museum I headed back to the station and continued on my journey back up through the Albula Tunnel and onto Samedan on the other side of the mountains. My original plan had been to hang around here for my connection for about 40 minutes, but it didn’t look like there was much to see, and the train that was to form my connection was already on the station heading a couple of stops away to Pontresina where it would turn round and come back, so I decided to hop on that for the journey to Pontresina and ensure I had a good seat for the journey on the penultimate leg of my exploration of the Rhaetian Railway.

After heading out to Pontresina and back to Samedan the railway continues on down to Bever where it diverges from the Albula line and continues to follow the course of the Inn river down it’s valley, through wide flood plains and deep gorges to the towns of Scuol and Tarasp which share a station. The final section of the line being particularly impressive as a wall of continuous peaks lines the opposite bank of the river, broken only by the impressive site of Tarasp Castle perched high on a rocky outcrop.

Arriving into Scuol the first thing I was greeted by was the Pendicularas, a gondola cable car that heads up high into the mountains. So I naturally brought a ticket and headed on up. At the top you are greeted with the breath-taking view of the valley and an almost uncountable number of peaks stretching off as far as the eye can see. Also at the top you are greeted by a very pleasant bar with an outdoor terrace, which would have been rude to ignore.

After a very nice local beer up above the snowline I headed back to the cable car and descended back down to Scuol to take the last new bit of railway back to Klosters. Whilst the bulk of the network was in place by the early 20th century this particular line only opened in 1999 when the 19Km long Vereina tunnel was opened linking the Bever to Scuol line with the Landquart to Davos line at Klosters.

The tunnel is impressive for it’s length, straight through a massive mountain range, but also because alongside the passenger trains regular car trains run through the tunnel cutting nearly 100Km off of a trip round the mountains and providing a vital link between the Inn and Landquart valleys.

Back in Klosters it was a quick change of train and then back up the hill to Davos where I zipped back to the hotel, grabbed my luggage and then headed back to the station to catch the train back down to Landquart and then onto Zurich for the next leg of my journey.