PONTRESINA, Switzerland — On the home stretch now in this very busy trip. The groundwork has been done for all three of the features I plan to write, but I’m back in Rhätische Bahn territory this weekend. I’ll be spending a little time on the Bernina Line, which I did not get to on my earlier visit, and joining up with head of rolling stock Markus Zaugg — my host or cohost on several of my earlier adventures — so he can show me his favorite piece in the railroad’s extensive collection of heritage equipment. I’ll tell you more about that after it happens.
Today’s primary subject will be the line that will be the subject of the third of those planned features, the Vigezzina-Centovalli Railway, a meter-gauge line which runs between Domodossola, Italy, and Locarno, Switzerland. This is at the other end of the railway spectrum from the Lötschberg Tunnel, a vital national and international line for both freight and passenger traffic. While it was conceived as a connection between two such lines — the Simplon and Gotthard routes — it remains a relatively little-known passenger connection of real significance only to the string of small towns between its two end points.
Everyone else who seeks it out — and the numbers who do so are slowly increasing — do so strictly because it is a tourist pleasure: a 52-kilometer (32.3-mile) trip scheduled for 1 hour, 54 minutes. That’s a blistering 17 mph, but there’s good reason for that. The route includes 83 bridges, 31 tunnels, 24 intermediate stations (many stop-on-request only). if you’re on the through train, the Centovalli Express). It climbs from about 600 feet to 2,743 feet,and seems to hardly offer more than a hundred yards of straight track at any one time.
In short, it’s the kind of slow, short, scenic route made for tourism. I made a through trip from Domodossola to Locarno with a group organized by Travel Switzerland (almost by coincidence; I had planned a solo trip, but in talking with one of my contacts at the tourism office, we discovered my schedule and the group’s essentially matched up.) While the tour group continued on, I overnighted in Locarno and spent the next day riding the Swiss part of the line (which has more frequent service) to get a better feel for it, and to be able to hop off and take some photos, like the one above, at Intragna, and the one below, of a through train passing a local at Verdasio. There are more, but for now, I’ll save them for the magazine.
It’s a really fun little railroad, and may be the least Swiss operation in Switzerland. In my day of jumping on and off, I was on something like eight trains, and never once was asked for a ticket. And timekeeping was more of the reasonably-close nature than Swiss-watch exact. This line operates in Italian-speaking Switzerland and Italy, after all, and in many ways felt very Italian. (I say that with fondness.)
I’ll have much more to say about this line in a future magazine article, but for now, suffice it to say that if you have plans to be in this part of the world, this is worth including. It’s already popular — the full-route train we rode as a group was full; the Swiss-only local trains I rode by myself less so — and I suspect that’s only going to increase. Travel Switzerland is beginning to promote the route more — that’s why the tour group of writers and “influencers” was on board, after all — for those seeking an alternative to the booked-to-capacity Glacier Express and Bernina Express. So while Centovalle is not exactly unknown, it’s likely it’s only going to become more known in the years ahead.
There’s no better time to go than now. Or at least soon.
Back to Gotthard
Today was a very travel day — involving six trains, with the first departing just before 8 a.m. and the last arriving at 5 p.m. — but it did allow me to mix in a bit of just-for-fun riding, another trip on the Gotthard Panorama Express over the historic Gotthard Pass. This was my third trip on the scenic train operated by Swiss Federal Railways, or SBB, and it remains both a great ride and an underappreciated one, compared to other great Swiss train trips. To be able to stand at an open window at speed is a vanishing pleasure; the Panorama Express has the only SBB car — a photo coach — in mainline service that allows this particular thrill.
I rejoined that Travel Switzerland group for this ride, and helped the first-time riders know when they wanted to be in that photo coach, and introduced them to the pleasure of passing the church at Wassen … and then passing the church at Wassen … and then passing the church at Wassen again, as the train descends the spiral tunnels on the north side of the pass (since we were traveling south to north on this trip). The two rides with the tour group also allowed me brief reunions with Travel Switzerland’s ebullient tour host Fabio, who led the tour I was part of last year. Travel Switzerland’s Danielle, who had met me at the Zurich airport when I arrived, engineered this as a surprise, and it was fun to see his double-take when I showed up for Wednesday’s trip. She tried to surprise me today, as well, by arranging a cab ride across the pass — SBB now offers these on a limited basis — but since a paying customer had booked the experience today, I was out of luck. No complaints. I enjoyed the ride just as it was.
This weekend in Pontresina is the last hurrah for my time with the RhB, and really, for the trip itself. Monday I travel to Basel, in part because I haven’t yet been there in three trips to Switzerland, but mostly to position myself for a short trip to the airport in Zurich the next day. If all goes well, I’ll have one more post before I fly back. If not, I’ll wrap things up when I get home.
