Facts about Rack Railways
- 13
New Zealand's Rimutaka Incline Railway, operational from 1878 to 1955, used a 13-kilometer rack section with gradients reaching 42 percent to transport passengers and cargo across the Rimutaka Range between Wellington and the Wairarapa Valley.
- 12
Sweden's Trengsleten rack railway, built in 1891 to transport iron ore from the Grängesberg mine, featured a unique double-sided rack system allowing simultaneous uphill and downhill traffic on its 7-kilometer route.
- 11
Germany's Zugspitze Railway, completed in 1930, includes a 4-kilometer rack section with a 25 percent gradient to transport passengers to the country's highest peak at 2,962 meters.
- 10
Chile's Ferrocarril Central constructed a rack railway section in 1910 to ascend the Andes at gradients up to 45 percent, making it the first rack railway system built in South America.
- 09
Rack railways require specialized maintenance schedules where the pinion gear and rack rail teeth must be inspected and replaced every 15 to 25 years depending on traffic volume and environmental conditions.
- 08
By 1900, over 40 rack railways had been constructed worldwide, with approximately 60 percent of them located in the European Alps serving both tourism and transport infrastructure needs.
- 07
Austria's Schafberg Railway, opened in 1893, operates at a gradient of 26 percent and remains the oldest continuously operating rack railway in the world still using steam locomotives.
- 06
Switzerland's Gornergrat Railway, inaugurated in 1898, was the first open-air rack railway in the world, operating at elevations up to 3,089 meters without a tunnel protecting its track.
- 05
A rack railway's pinion gear typically has 16 to 20 teeth that mesh with a fixed center or side rail containing evenly spaced teeth, allowing these systems to maintain traction on grades exceeding 40 percent where adhesion alone would fail.
- 04
Cogwheel railways in India, including the Darjeeling Himalayan Railway opened in 1881, use a similar rack-and-pinion system to traverse steep mountain terrain in the Himalayan foothills.
- 03
Mount Washington's cog railway in New Hampshire, built in 1869, uses a center rail rack system to climb 3,722 meters with a maximum grade of 37.41 percent.
- 02
The Pilatus Railway in Switzerland, opened in 1873, holds the record for the world's steepest rack railway with a maximum gradient of 48 percent on its 4.6-kilometer route.
- 01
Switzerland's Jungfraujoch railway, completed in 1912, reaches 3,454 meters elevation using a rack-and-pinion system on grades steeper than 35 percent.