Pilatus Railway: The World’s Steepest Cogwheel Railway at 48% Gradient

Leaving Alpnachstad on the shore of Lake Lucerne, the railcars of the Pilatus Railway tilt upward and keep on climbing up the rock faces of the mountain. With a maximum gradient of 48 per cent, this is the steepest cogwheel railway in the world, and it has been carrying passengers to the top of Mount Pilatus since 1889.

The Pilatus Railway in numbers

• Route: Alpnachstad to Pilatus Kulm, at about 2,073 m near the Esel summit
• Length: 4,618 m
• Height gain: 1,635 m
• Gradient: 48% maximum, 38% average
• Gauge: 800 mm
• Journey time: about 27 minutes up and 33 minutes down
• Fleet: 8 railcars carrying 46 passengers each

A 48% gradient means the track rises 48 metres for every 100 metres it travels horizontally, an angle of about 25.6 degrees. That may not sound extreme, but for a railway it is enormous: ordinary trains struggle with more than a few per cent.

How the Locher rack system works

Normal rack railways use a cogwheel that meshes with a toothed rail from above. On a slope as steep as Pilatus, engineer Eduard Locher feared that such a cogwheel could ride up and jump out of the rack. His solution was a horizontal double rack laid between the rails, with teeth pointing out to each side. Two cogwheels on vertical shafts under the car grip it from left and right.

The design holds the car firmly onto the track and also stops it being lifted or tipped over by strong crosswinds on the exposed mountainside. The Locher system was built for Pilatus and is still unique to it.

From steam to the 2023 railcars

The line opened with steam railcars on 4 June 1889. It was electrified, with a 1,650-volt DC overhead supply, and reopened on 15 May 1937. The newest chapter began on 5 June 2023, when new energy-efficient railcars built by Stadler Rail entered service, so the trains in these photographs belong to the earlier fleet.

Visiting Mount Pilatus

Alpnachstad has a station on the Zentralbahn’s Brünig line from Lucerne and a pier for the Lake Lucerne boats. The classic outing is the Golden Round Trip: boat across the lake to Alpnachstad, cogwheel railway to the summit, then cable car and gondola down to Kriens and back to Lucerne.

• Season: the cogwheel railway runs from about May to November. In winter, snow closes the line, and the summit is reached by the cableways from Kriens instead.
• Book a seat: the operator recommends seat reservations on fine days.
• Check the timetable: for your date on pilatus.ch; the cableways also close for maintenance at times.

At the top, walking trails lead to the viewpoints of Esel and Oberhaupt, with views over Lake Lucerne and the Alps. For more Swiss engineering, see The Albula and Bernina Railways: Read the Engineering in the Alpine View and the Sphinx Observatory; for winter trips, our ski villages guide.

Related reading

• Peak Walk by Tissot: A Bridge Between Alpine Viewpoints
• Titlis Cliff Walk: The High-Alpine Bridge and the View Around It
• Robert Bösch’s Mammut Photographs: People Giving Mountains Scale
• The Matterhorn Lit in Red: A Photograph with 150 Years of History
• The Matterhorn Through the Day: Twelve Photographs, One Remarkable Mountain
• 15 Swiss Ski Resorts: Compare the Villages, Terrain and Connected Areas

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