About this journey

Alpnachstad station sits at the southern shore of Lake Lucerne, where the Pilatus Railway departs from its lower terminus — a junction also served by Zentralbahn's Brünigbahn line and by Lake Lucerne steamers. From here, line 473 begins its ascent of Mount Pilatus, covering 4.6 km of track while climbing a vertical distance of 1,629 m to the summit terminus at Pilatus Kulm, which stands at 2,073 m and is the highest railway in the canton of Obwalden.

The railway opened on 4 June 1889, having been built entirely with private capital by engineer Eduard Locher, whose company financed and constructed the line without government subsidy. Construction began in March 1886 and required four hundred working days across three summer seasons, employing six hundred labourers. The challenge was the gradient: at a maximum of 48% and an average of 35%, this remains the steepest rack railway in the world. Conventional rack systems could not hold a train safely at such angles, so Locher devised a horizontal double rack with teeth facing each side, engaged by two flanged cogwheels on vertical shafts. All rails are fastened directly to solid rock with no ballast. The line was electrified in 1937 at 1,650 V DC, and the current trains — built by Stadler Rail and introduced in 2023 — operate seasonally from May to October, as the line has done for well over a century.