Since 1898 a cogwheel train has climbed out of Zermatt to a rocky ridge facing the Matterhorn, Monte Rosa and 29 peaks above 4,000 metres. Here is how to ride it, where to get off, and what waits at the top.
In this story · 4 sections
Zermatt has no cars, but it has one of the great railway journeys of the Alps. From a station beside the main line in the village, at 1,604 metres, the trains of the Gornergrat Railway climb 1,469 metres in 9.3 kilometres to a ridge above the Gorner glacier. At the top, on a clear day, the Matterhorn and Monte Rosa stand in a ring of 29 summits above 4,000 metres. For more Alpine journeys, see our Alps destinations.
2 places
Note- Zermatt (1,604 m)
- Departure, beside the Matterhorn Gotthard Bahn station
- Findelbach
- A passing loop above the village
- Riffelalp (2,222 m)
- The Riffelalp Resort, reached by its own short tram
- Riffelberg
- Intermediate stop on the upper line
- Rotenboden
- The rock tooth of the Riffelhorn (2,928 m)
- Gornergrat (3,089 m)
- The terminus, the Kulmhotel and the panorama
A railway of firsts
Zermatt was linked to the Rhone valley by rail in 1891, and work on a line to the Gornergrat began five years later. The first locomotive runs took place in November 1897 and the railway opened on 20 August 1898 – electric from the start, the first electric rack railway in Switzerland. It runs on metre gauge with the Abt rack system, and it is one of only four lines in the world to use three-phase power: look up and you will see two overhead wires, with the rails forming the third conductor.
For its first three decades the train ran only in summer. Winter services began in 1928 on the lower section, and after a 770-metre avalanche gallery was finished in 1941, trains could reach the summit in winter too. Until the Jungfrau Railway opened in 1912 it was the highest railway in Europe; it remains the highest open-air one.
The stops on the way up
Riffelalp: a grand hotel above the trees
Halfway up, at 2,222 metres and just above the tree line, Riffelalp has been a hotel address since the Zermatt hotelier Alexander Seiler bought land on the meadow in 1856. His Riffelalp Grand Hotel opened in 1884; in 1899, a year after the railway arrived, the hotel built a 675-metre tram to link its door to the station. The old hotel burned down in February 1961, and today the Riffelalp Resort 2222m stands on the site, with its chapel beside it.
At the top: Gornergrat and its observatory
The Gornergrat ridge rises to 3,135 metres between the Gorner and Findel glaciers. Between the station and the summit stands the Kulmhotel Gornergrat at 3,120 metres, its two towers fitted with astronomical observatories in the late 1960s; the south tower now hosts the Stellarium Gornergrat project. The Gorner glacier below is billed as the second longest in the Alps. Of the 29 four-thousanders in view, the highest are the Dufourspitze in the Monte Rosa massif, the Liskamm, the Matterhorn, the Dom and the Weisshorn.
The Gornergrat is also part of the Zermatt ski area in winter and a starting point for many hikes in summer. For more travel reading, browse Metro Mode Travel; for the French side of the Alps, VERA PI's Chamonix property data shows what a view of Mont Blanc costs.
Gornergrat Bahn, Zermatt station
Departures to 3,089 metres
The valley station, beside the Matterhorn Gotthard Bahn terminus.
Kulmhotel Gornergrat
Hotel and observatory at 3,120 m
Between the terminus and the summit, with observatory towers added in the late 1960s.
