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Description
Some more scenery porn, this time with railroad lines as well.

Today, the Gotthard (Switzerland) is the most important pass over the alps. Well, you could argue about the Brenner (Austria), and of course the Lötschberg-Simplon-Route has a lot of traffic, but I think it's safe to say that the Gotthard remains the most important of them all. Historically, that is fairly recent, though, because the line follows a valley, and the valley ends apruptly. The village where that valley ends is called Göschenen.

From that valley, you had to go up through the Schöllenen Schlucht (canyon), which was quite an effort. Today there is a very, very steep but surprisingly little known narrow gauge railroad through this gorge, from Göschenen up to Andermatt (it is part of the MGB network), and it is from a train on this line that this picture was taken.

However, traffic only began to take off when the Gotthard rail line with the Gotthard tunnel was opened in 1882. The incredibly steep and twisty line goes several hundred meters up through tunnels, over bridges, doubling back on itself several times, before it finally reaches Göschenen, where it enters the tunnel, to emerge in the italian-speaking part of Switzerland, facing a similar journey back down. Most trains from Germany and many from France go through this line to reach Italy, and due to that most trains from the north sea harbors in Belgium and the Netherlands, as well as trains from Scandinavia, do the same as well. The opening of this tunnel was the reason why the first international railroad standards comission was founded.

Still, Göschenen's glory days are over. Most passenger trains and all freight trains pass through without stopping. The car shuttle service on the line is disfunct (you can see its platform on the right side of the rail lines) since a motorway tunnel through the mountains was opened. And in the future, the entire line will be replaced by the far longer Gotthard base tunnel, which starts and ends before the valleys and their long climbs up to the old tunnel. There are calls for this old line to be classified as a UNESCO world heritage site. That won't be trivial, since much has changed since 1882, but I support this quest nevertheless.

Description
Some more scenery porn, this time with railroad lines as well.

Today, the Gotthard (Switzerland) is the most important pass over the alps. Well, you could argue about the Brenner (Austria), and of course the Lötschberg-Simplon-Route has a lot of traffic, but I think it's safe to say that the Gotthard remains the most important of them all. Historically, that is fairly recent, though, because the line follows a valley, and the valley ends apruptly. The village where that valley ends is called Göschenen.

From that valley, you had to go up through the Schöllenen Schlucht (canyon), which was quite an effort. Today there is a very, very steep but surprisingly little known narrow gauge railroad through this gorge, from Göschenen up to Andermatt (it is part of the MGB network), and it is from a train on this line that this picture was taken.

However, traffic only began to take off when the Gotthard rail line with the Gotthard tunnel was opened in 1882. The incredibly steep and twisty line goes several hundred meters up through tunnels, over bridges, doubling back on itself several times, before it finally reaches Göschenen, where it enters the tunnel, to emerge in the italian-speaking part of Switzerland, facing a similar journey back down. Most trains from Germany and many from France go through this line to reach Italy, and due to that most trains from the north sea harbors in Belgium and the Netherlands, as well as trains from Scandinavia, do the same as well. The opening of this tunnel was the reason why the first international railroad standards comission was founded.

Still, Göschenen's glory days are over. Most passenger trains and all freight trains pass through without stopping. The car shuttle service on the line is disfunct (you can see its platform on the right side of the rail lines) since a motorway tunnel through the mountains was opened. And in the future, the entire line will be replaced by the far longer Gotthard base tunnel, which starts and ends before the valleys and their long climbs up to the old tunnel. There are calls for this old line to be classified as a UNESCO world heritage site. That won't be trivial, since much has changed since 1882, but I support this quest nevertheless.