About this journey

Chur station, the most important railway junction in Graubünden, sits where the SBB standard-gauge network and the Rhaetian Railway's metre-gauge lines converge. The station opened on 30 June 1858 as the terminus of the Rheineck–Chur railway, and when the Rhaetian Railway opened its narrow-gauge line between Landquart and Thusis in 1896, the Federal Council required it to share the existing station rather than build its own. Today the RhB is integral to the site, and this journey departs on Fahrplanfeld 920, the RhB line that runs the length of the Rhine valley toward Disentis/Mustér.

The line follows the upper Rhine westward into the canton's Romansh-speaking heartland. Disentis/Mustér stands where the routes of the Oberalp and Lukmanier passes converge, and the settlement's Romansh name — Mustér — refers directly to the Benedictine monastery that has defined this place since around 720, with its present large complex built between 1696 and 1712. The station itself is a railway junction of wider significance: it marks the western end of the RhB line from Chur and the eastern terminus of the Matterhorn Gotthard Bahn from Brig via Andermatt — a meeting point that the Glacier Express, running between Zermatt and St. Moritz, also uses on its route through the Alps.