Homeward Bound from GRJ’s Glacier Express

Basel looked interesting, but we were a bit pushed for time. We had arrived just in time for our evening meal, which was provided in the hotel next door to ours. The food at the Victoria Hotel was excellent, as was our stay at the Schweizerhof, and we negotiated the short walk between the two without any need for hard hats in spite of the warning! 

This left an intensive day’s travel back home, starting with a coach journey over the French border to Mulhouse. The attractive pink-shaded sandstone façade of Mulhouse station is extensive and impressive, and as so often happens in continental cities, it leads straight out onto a tram or bus interchange. The concourse at Mulhouse was notably different from the more traditional examples we had become used to seeing. It was light, airy and Art Deco in style. However, as our leader pointed out, the rest of the station left a bit to be desired, and viewed from the pedestrian overbridge, the prefabricated sheets that made up the platform canopies certainly looked very grubby.

Our Train à Grande Vitesse [TGV] to Paris Gare de Lyon turned out to be a record breaker. In 2007, it broke the world railway speed record reaching 357.18 m.p.h. That is not far off three times the speed that Mallard was doing in 1938, when she achieved the unbeaten world steam speed record on the East Coast Main Line. The TGV record still holds for travel on rails, though a Japanese Maglev [magnetic levitation] train subsequently got off the ground at 375 m.p.h.

I got a bit excited once we were under way. After all, I was facing the direction of travel, upstairs on a double decker unit and next to a window with great views of the countryside, behind a record breaker and on a train that regularly cruises at 200 m.p.h. on the most up to date sections of track. I just felt that I had to tell my mates all about it on our WhatsApp group without delay. Ian got back to me straight away to tell me that he was simultaneously on a Merseyrail train that had just passed Bidston rubbish tip at 27 m.p.h.

After that highlight it didn’t really matter that I was going backwards on Eurostar again. It was dark outside anyway for most of the time. Luckily, trains out of King’s Cross going in our direction had avoided the excesses of Storm Amy that had been suffered elsewhere. We had enjoyed an action-packed week away. The scenery had been as good as expected. The hotels were all splendid and we had felt well looked after, throughout, by our tour manager. I’m sure that it’s a stimulating and sociable job to have, travelling the world and seeing so many new places, but as anyone knows who has been in a similar position of responsibility for others on the move [in my case, countless times with school children] it’s a 24/7 duty roster with all sorts of unforeseen circumstances to suddenly have to deal with. So, thank you, Hilary, for your sound guidance, clear instructions and good humour at all times.           

The Glacier Express

Well, this was a very plush train. I tried to list the facilities, including more space and foot room [always important for people with bad knees], DVD screen with apposite information and updates [WC availability, map, next station, temperature outside, height reached in metres, time], larger tables for all with personal extensions, drinks holder, table light, drinks attendant with at your table service, waste disposal built-in at the side of the table, air conditioning, panoramic windows, fully carpeted, decorated wooden panelling with appropriate motifs, wi-fi, headphones for descriptive commentary, armrest, headrest with antimacassar, a spotless toilet nearby and probably some more stuff, as well. This was the only train during the whole week away where the very assiduous ticket collector insisted on checking the tour manager’s group ticket as well as each individual half-price Swiss rail pass and all our passports.

The train reversed at Chur and then headed west, winding its way through the Rhine Gorge to Disentis Muster, where a change of locomotive was necessary. The very hilly bits over the Alps here are too steep in some sections for normal trains to keep a grip on the tracks. These rack railways have an extra metal section attached to the middle of the sleepers, which is a ridged or toothed third rail, in effect. Under the locomotive is a cog, which grips the rack as it turns and adds sufficient adhesion to the process to pull the train up the slope. It also helps slow the train down on a steep descent. This happened in various sections on both sides of the summit and you could hear the added [though slight] grinding noise whenever the rack and pinion was in play.

The train climbed to the Oberalp Pass at 2,046 metres above sea level. The watershed here is between the headwaters of the Rhone, which flow west into France and those of the Rhine which flow east and then north into Germany. We wended our way downhill to Andermatt and then onwards to Brig, where we disembarked. We found the ancient Stockalperschloss, which had pleasant gardens to sit in, for those who hadn’t done enough sitting around already. 

  

The Bernina Express

The stock of the Rhaetian Railway is all red. In fact, it’s as red as red can be. Viewed from a distance, as the trains weave through steep ravines, below stands of fir trees and with the odd schloss in the background, the whole panorama looks like a magical world of make-believe. Up close, it really works. The carriages are immaculate, inside and out, helped, no doubt, by the prevalence of clean mountain air and clean electric power.

“Express” is something of a misnomer. There is nothing fast about the Bernina Express. This is through necessity, as the slopes it climbs are steep and the bends it has to take are sharp. As visitors, we are the beneficiaries. We’re not in a hurry. We just want to sit back, relax and enjoy the scenery, and there is certainly a lot of scenery to enjoy. We got the certificate for completing the course but we missed out on the tee shirt.

To help negotiate what was a hostile landscape for the railway builders, the coaches are shorter than their standard gauge equivalents and so too are the impressive, chunky but nevertheless powerful locomotives. A short wheelbase helps on tight curves, yet there was still quite a lot of squealing to be heard on the tightest of the bends from steel on steel.

The windows on the Bernina Express are massive and extend into the arch of the roof. This is obviously for viewing purposes and it works very well in that way. However, when the sun is out it can feel like a bit of a greenhouse, in spite of any attempts at air conditioning, and I did wonder whether in high summer it might feel a bit uncomfortably warm in there.

The line climbs to 2,253 metres above sea level. That’s well over two Scafell Pikes on top of each other. The views were stunning, including snow covered peaks, glaciers and a couple of large reservoirs above the tree line. This plateau marks the divide between the water eventually flowing into the Black Sea, via the Danube, and that flowing Into the Adriatic Sea via the River Po.

The line descends into Italy for its last few kilometres, ending up over the border in Tirano. The RhB terminus here is alongside the Italian railway network’s standard gauge station, where we were also back in graffiti land. We walked between the three gates that marked the boundary of the original city, within which the unspoilt cobbled narrow streets and old houses didn’t quite seem to convey the affluence that we had become used to seeing over the border in Switzerland, picturesque as they were.

Many of the Alpine towns that sit on a flood plain at the foot of steep slopes have glacial meltwater spillways, where the courses of original streams and rivers have been widened, straightened and enclosed by robust walls both to keep the springtime water in, and to move it on as quickly as possible to avoid the flooding that may have been a problem in the past.  

The Albula Line

Swiss railways are a bit special. Switzerland has the densest rail network in Europe. It is very well used by residents and visitors, alike, and is nearly all powered by an overhead electricity supply. Trains are generally very clean - inside and out - and punctual, and they have a good safety record. Three-quarters of the system is standard gauge, as it is in most of mainland Europe and the UK. Swiss Federal Railways is the biggest of 74 different rail operators.

Tiefencastel, our home for 5 days, is on the Rhaetian Railway’s Albula Line. RhB is the largest private operator in the country. It covers all the railways in the canton of Grisons and operates on a gauge of 1 metre. The Albula line runs from Thusis to St Moritz and we covered it entirely over two separate days, firstly visiting Chur and Arosa, followed by St Moritz later in the week.

We started off at Chur, where, very politely and in English, “All passengers are kindly requested to leave the train”. Old town Chur and the cathedral were impressive, and so, too, was the fresh food department of the Migros supermarket close to the station. We were also intrigued by the leather man of Chur. He seemed to be spending his day walking up and down the main pedestrianised drag in a top hat [presumably mole skin], wearing black leather from head to toe and carrying a black leather bag.

             

Arosa was high up and colder, not surprisingly for a ski station. Round the back of the settlement, they’d developed their squirrel walk, where there were feeding stations for the black squirrels, a melanistic variation of the red squirrel. They were present in considerable numbers to take advantage of the hand-outs of nuts, seeds and grains. Nutcrackers, handsome Alpine birds, had also cottoned on to the freebie food bonanza, and I went from never having seen one before to clocking about fifty within half an hour.

The Albula line is largely single-track with passing places and it appears to be working just about to capacity, as they also manage to find paths for freight trains, often headed by two electric locomotives together, as they negotiate the tight curves and steep gradients that characterise the route. At Bergun, there is a splendid railway museum that explains the formidable challenges that faced the railway builders in such a harsh mountain environment. The resolute nature of the people fits in with their determination to develop their infrastructure and maintain their independence from foreign interference, a characteristic which still shows through today. 

One of the engineering highlights on this section is the Landwasser Viaduct, where the train suddenly emerges from a tunnel mouth that is a vertical cliff face and is then straight onto a six-arch bridge above a 65-metre-deep gorge. No wonder it is recognised as a UNESCO World Heritage site. 

St Moritz is probably the best known of the upmarket mountain resorts that would also include Davos and Klosters. It’s very pretty, with its lake sparkling in bright sunshine and sitting in an amphitheatre of surrounding mountain tops. It was so nice that a bat had decided that it was far too attractive to leave until dusk, so it had come out to get stuck into an aperitif of some daytime flies at the end of the lake. . At the lakeside there was also a procession of clearly fashionable thirty somethings dressed in very smart running gear and doing their warm up and stretching routines prior to a jog round the water’s edge. What a lovely place to take your daily exercise.

The renowned posh shops were empty of potential customers, which was no surprise – not because the stuff was ridiculously expensive, but because they are mainly figurehead stores for high-end retailers, who can then add St Moritz to London, Paris and New York to all their stationery and advertising. Having said that, the popular traditional patisserie was brilliant. The raspberry tart was delicious and just within our budget.   

A Great Rail Journey

Travelling backwards on Eurostar was obviously not the best of starts, but there is a big difference between the English section and the French one in terms of visible landscape. On the now not so new bit from St Pancras to Folkestone, you spend quite a lot of time staring out at concrete, then at vertical sound reducing barriers erected for the benefit of the railway’s neighbours, or else deep in cuttings probably designed with the same purpose in mind - to keep the line from view. It’s really only when you get to France that the countryside opens out consistently before your eyes.

We’d spent the previous evening wandering between two contrasting urban zones either side of King’s Cross; the one to the north of the station which is brand spanking new and inhabited by a tribe of smartly attired young people, who can afford a glass of wine at a trendy bistro at £20 a go, and the rather less glamorous Pentonville and King’s Cross Roads to the south near our hotel, where every step was an exercise in trash avoidance - and worse. Chris asked the girl sweeping up outside her shop front the morning after if she has to do that every day before she opens up, but apparently it is usually just weekends.

Extreme contrasts are not solely a British problem. Within minutes of being warned about pickpocketing in the French capital city, one of our number had sadly been added to those statistics during the short walk between the grand facades of Paris Gare du Nord and Gare de L’ Est. 

Strasbourg felt similar. The station is entombed in glass and resembles some sort of giant, primitive organism. There was impressive old town, touristy Strasbourg, with its mighty-high cathedral - a vertical stone rocket aiming skywards, and the station approaches, where, instead of enjoying the nightlife that was presumably on offer elsewhere, the local youths were mostly mooching around in close-knit groups without any obvious stuff to do. Suddenly the area was full of ambulances, fire and rescue vehicles and armed police. Passers-by stood around waiting for the action to unfold but nothing happened so, like us, they all just drifted off.

The onward journey to Tiefencastel in Switzerland was in 3 connecting parts, which meant that we arrived there around teatime. You just couldn’t help but notice by then that Switzerland is clean – in fact, it’s extremely clean. They don’t seem to do rubbish-strewn streets, over-full bins or graffiti, which was actually very refreshing. It just somehow all felt very well-ordered, affluent and relaxed. People were courteous and helpful. Motorists were suddenly slowing down to allow us to cross the road and not just at the crossings. I started wondering why everywhere can’t be like Switzerland, and that was even before we had reached any of the seriously dramatic scenery or started to talk about the trains.