Breathtaking Bernina Express: An extraordinary train experience in Switzerland (8/9)

The Bernina Railway is a single track metre gauge railway line forming part of the Rhaetian Railway (RhB). It links the spa resort of St. Moritz, in the Canton of Grisons/Graubünden, Switzerland, with the town of Tirano, located right next to the Swiss border in Italy, via the 2253metres/7600feet high Bernina Pass. It also ranks as the highest adhesion railway in the Alps, and - with inclines of up to 7% - as one of the steepest adhesion railways in the world.

On 7 July 2008, the Bernina Railway and the Albula Railway, which also forms part of the RhB, were recorded in the list of UNESCO World Heritage Sites, under the name Rhaetian Railway in the Albula / Bernina Landscapes. The whole site is regarded as a cross border joint Swiss-Italian heritage area.

The most famous trains operating on the Bernina Railway are known as the Bernina Express. The Bernina Express is an express train connecting Chur in Switzerland with Poschiavo and Tirano in Italy, by crossing the Swiss Alps from north to south. The trip on the Bernina Express through this World Heritage Site is a 4 hour railway journey across 196 bridges, through 55 tunnels and across the Bernina Pass on the highest point at 2,253 metres in altitude. The line followed by Switzerland's Bernina Express is a masterpiece of engineering works. Its combination with the surrounding landscape is what constitutes its recognition as a UNESCO World Heritage site.

This video shows the train's departure from Ospizio Bernina down to the Engadin region. The station lies at 2253 metres / 7391 feet above sea level, making it the hightest-altitude station on the Rhaetian Railway. The hospice from which the place-name is derived also marks the linguistic boundary between the southern, Italian-speaking valley of Puschlav and the Engadin region, where the inhabitants speak Romansh (or more correctly Rhaeto-Romanic) and German. The station building and the mountain inn date from around 1925.

The waters to the north of the Bernina Pass naturally flow via the Danube and into the Black Sea, while the waters to the south of the pass end up in the river Po and the Adriatic. Efforts began in 1911 to change the natural order somewhat, and trap the water in artificial lakes such as Lago Bianco and Lej Nair, whose names refer to different colours: light for Lago Bianco, dark for Lej Nair.

http://www.rhb.ch/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernina_Express
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernina_Railway

Links to all nine videos of the "Breathtaking Bernina Express" series (1-9):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3cuMSrSgtXc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MAJace5c2yE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B4kOfVqA2jc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RjOiDSv3qy8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qAn-jL2ZbNo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zd3YkICS2Gk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XojVD_DqCwk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-9vSeXrWMU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1QJR3Uwdm34

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