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.