01
The rack
Between Treeline and the gallery the track carries a lamellar rack: a ladder of steel teeth bolted between the rails. Under each car sit two cog wheels on sprung axles. The cog carries the climb; the smooth wheels only steer.
How it climbs
Engineering
A mountain railway is a negotiation. The mountain sets the terms; the engineers answer with rack, cog, and redundancy. Everything below is the standard kit of rack railways everywhere, described the way our (fictional) workshop explains it to visitors on the platform.
02
The gradient
25 percent is the average deception of a photograph. On the ground it means every third step you take inside the car is higher than the last, and the level floor of car 07 becomes a promise the mountain only half keeps.
03
Braking, three ways
Every car brakes three independent ways: hydraulic on the wheels, a screw brake on the cog, and a rack pawl that bites the rack teeth outright. Any one of the three holds a full car on the steepest section with the other two retired.
04
Traction
Below Treeline the cars run on 750-volt DC picked up from the old side rail. Above it, through the gallery, power comes from the overhead and the pick-up shoes change over without the passengers noticing anything but the light.
05
The viaduct
The high meadow crossing is a 96-metre timber viaduct, rebuilt in 2001 with the original iron shoes reused. It flexes a hand's width under a loaded car, which the engineers describe as 'within parameters' and everyone else describes as memorable.
06
Cold work
Plough car Messmer leads the 07:12 after heavy snow. Its wedge throws two metres of fall sideways off the rack; the driver's window is armored and the seat is the only wooden one on the railway, kept for the person doing the coldest job.
07
Six cars, two ploughs, one standard
The Falzgrund depot keeps every vehicle on the line indoors at night. The workshop bay has the same length as the longest car plus one metre at each end, which the head of traction calls the only luxury the company ever bought.
The fleet
Cars 01 to 06 are the all-day workhorses, seating 44. Cars 07 and 08 (1998) have panorama windows and level floors. Car 09 is the Night Owl's own, dimmed to observatory rules. Ploughs Messmer and Goria handle the winter.
The standard
Every vehicle is stripped and inspected on a rolling 28-day cycle, whether or not anything is wrong. The workshop log runs back to 1912 and fills nine ledgers; entry one is a wheel measurement in copperplate.
The rule of hands
No repair is signed off by the person who made it. A second hand re-checks every job. It is slower, and in 114 years no car has missed a timetable day for a mechanical fault. The phrase is painted over the workshop door.