About this journey

Disentis-Mustér station sits at the western end of the Rhaetian Railway's line from Landquart via Chur and Reichenau-Tamins, high in the upper Rhine valley where the Oberalp and Lukmanier pass roads converge. The town's history runs deep: Disentis Abbey, founded around 720 AD, served as the cultural and political centre of the region through the early medieval period, and its large baroque complex, built between 1696 and 1712, remains visible from the railway.

The Rhaetian Railway extended this metre-gauge line westward to reach Disentis, a route also served several times a day by the Glacier Express on its tourist-oriented services between Zermatt and St. Moritz. The descent follows the Rhine valley toward Chur, the most important railway junction in Graubünden. Chur station itself has a long and layered history: it opened on 30 June 1858 as a standard-gauge terminus, and when the Rhaetian Railway arrived with its narrow-gauge network in 1896, it was compelled to share the existing station rather than construct one of its own. A complete rebuilding took place between 1926 and 1928, and comprehensive redevelopment began again in 2000. The journey moves from one of Switzerland's most significant Romansh-speaking communities down through the Rhine valley to a station where two distinct rail networks meet on the same platforms.