Vitznau–Rigi Railway

The Vitznau–Rigi Railway , called the Rigibahn until 1969, is a Swiss standard gauge rack railway that runs from Vitznau on the shore of Lake Lucerne to Rigi. Together with the Arth–Rigi Railway , which runs on the other side of the mountain, and the Weggis–Rigi Kaltbad cable car , it has formed the Rigi Railways since 1992.

The Vitznau–Rigi railway was opened on 21 May 1871 as the Rigibahn and the first mountain railway in Europe. The first rack railway of Europe had already been opened in the quarry of Ostermundigen in 1870. The quarry was officially opened for marketing reasons only in October 1871. The Vitznau–Rigi Railway was built by the engineers Niklaus Riggenbach, Ferdinand Adolf Naeff and Olivier Zschokke. At first it ran only from Vitznau via Kaltbad to Rigi Staffelhöhe . On 27 June 1873, the railway was extended to Rigi Kulm . This section is located in the canton of Schwyz, for which the VRB had no concession. The track belonged to the ARB and was leased by the VRB. The line is mostly single track, but the line has been double-track since 1874 from the request stop of Freibergen to Rigi Kaltbad-First.

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