About this journey

Aigle station sits at the foot of the Chablais Alps, where the TPC Aigle–Leysin line departs from a stop alongside the main Swiss rail network and immediately begins one of the most concentrated climbs on any Swiss rack railway. The line opened on 5 May 1900 as a 1,000 mm gauge cog-wheel railway using the Abt rack system — the first of its kind in the region — and was extended to its current upper terminus in September 1915.

Over just 6.5 km the line ascends 1,047 m, with gradients steepening to 1 in 4.3 (23%) through the lower slopes, where the Abt rack becomes the mechanical heart of every ascent. The operating voltage, originally 600 V DC at opening, has since been raised to the present 1,500 V DC. In 1975 the railway became part of Transports Publics du Chablais (TPC), the regional operator formed by the merger of four local lines. The journey ends at Leysin-Grand-Hôtel, the high-altitude terminus that gives the line its character: a short distance by any ordinary measure, but one that crosses more than a kilometre of vertical relief between the valley floor and the mountain resort above.