About this journey

Brig station, opened in 1878 as the eastern terminus of the Simplon Railway, sits at one of the Alps' most consequential rail junctions. Standard gauge lines converge here from the west, while metre gauge lines depart from the adjacent Brig Bahnhofplatz station toward the high mountain network. The opening of the Simplon Tunnel in 1906 pushed that standard gauge axis southeast to Domodossola, but the metre gauge routes continue to define Brig's role as a gateway into the Swiss interior.

This journey follows the metre gauge line — Line 610 — climbing toward the Furka Pass aboard an MGB HGE 4/4 II locomotive. The network serving this route was operated for decades as the Furka Oberalp Bahn before being absorbed in 2003 into the Matterhorn Gotthard Bahn, which runs it today. At the far end of the line, Andermatt station sits at a junction where the Furka Pass route from Brig meets the Oberalp Pass corridor toward Disentis/Mustér, and a short branch — the Schöllenenbahn — drops north to Göschenen at the portal of the Gotthard Rail Tunnel. Andermatt is also a stop on the Glacier Express, linking this high Alpine station to services between Zermatt and St. Moritz or Chur, and the arrival here closes a journey that moves from a major international junction into the quieter heart of the Swiss mountain rail network.