About this journey

Tirano station, at 429 m above sea level in the Italian Alps, is the southern terminus of the Bernina Railway — the Berninabahn — a metre-gauge line running 61 km northward across the Bernina Pass to St. Moritz, Switzerland. From the very first metres, the line runs in street-tramway fashion through the centre of Tirano, passing directly beside the Basilica of the Madonna di Tirano before climbing into open Alpine terrain. The railway was built between 1908 and 1910 by the privately financed Bernina-Bahngesellschaft, funded by the hydro-electric firm Kraftwerke Brusio AG without any cantonal subsidy, and was operated independently until the 1940s, when it was acquired by the Rhaetian Railway. The line is electrified at 1,000 V DC overhead catenary, a system upgraded from 750 V DC in 1935, and it climbs by adhesion alone — no rack or cogwheel — on gradients reaching 70‰.

Among the most celebrated structures along the ascent is the Brusio spiral viaduct, a nine-arched single-track stone structure 143 m long that forms a complete 360-degree loop, opened on 1 July 1908 to keep the gradient within the line's 7% maximum. The climb is relentless, gaining elevation through a succession of valleys and exposed mountainside, the landscape shifting from the vineyards and orchards of the lower Valtellina toward the high Alpine pastures and rock. Together with the Albula Railway, the Bernina Railway was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2008 under the designation 'Rhaetian Railway in the Albula/Bernina Landscapes'.

The journey ends at Cavaglia station, at 1,692 m elevation, where the surroundings have been shaped over millennia by glacial action — the nearby Glacier Garden holds a system of glacially carved potholes known as the 'potholes of the giants', considered the most important erosional pothole system in the Alps. The ride thus compresses a remarkable vertical and environmental range into a single continuous ascent, from the street-level basilica at Tirano's valley floor to the glacial silence of the high mountains above.