After our magnificent first big rail trip around Scandinavia the year before, my best friend suggested we went to discover Switzerland by rail in 2013. He was inspired by his aunt’s trips to Switzerland and always wanted to go there himself, of course I couldn’t say no as the country spoke to me too. So off we went on a second rail adventure together.

After our splashing visit of the Reichenbach Falls in Meiringen we continued our trip towards Lucerne. While on the first leg of the trip we had one of the new electric multiple units of the Zentralbahn, the second leg would be on one of their older loco hauled trains. As Meiringen is a terminus station the locomotive had to run around the rake of coaches to be on the front of the train again. Due to the sections of rack rail on the line it is not possible to operate the trains in a push-pull configuration because of safety concerns.

We had a nice trip along the line to Lucerne, enjoying some nice bits of Alpine scenery.

After arrival in Lucerne we dropped our bags at the hotel and as it was still early in the day decided to make a side trip to Engelberg, the other line operated by Zentralbahn. Most of the line is for Swiss standards rather boring and flat, only the final section into Engelberg is steep and requires a rack rail to climb up. Engelberg itself is a rather small and sleepy town, mostly famous because of its huge monastery. We had a short stroll around the town before returning back to Lucerne.