Talk:Mountain railway

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I've removed the spurious claim that the Rimutaka Incline is the only commercially operated Fell railway that survived into the 20th century. The Snaefell Mountain Railway also uses the Fell system, and last time I looked it was still operating. -- Chris j wood 00:09, 25 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I have removed the following entries from the swiss section:

Societa Ferrovia elettrica Bellinzona-Mesocco - Doesn't climb any mountain or pass. The fact that it was once *supposed* to climb the San Bernardino pass hardly qualifies it as a mountain railway (that part was never built)
Ferrovia Mesolcinese - this is just another name for the same railway
Forchbahn, Bremgarten-Dietikon-Bahn - These are interurban tramway lines. The Forchbahn climbes the Pfannenstil, but that is more of a hill than a mountain. The height difference from the lowest to the highest point is only about 270 meters. In case of the Bremgarten-Dietikon-Bahn it is the Mutschellen pass, but in this case the height difference is even less, about 160 meters. If these would be included, we had to include many other railway and tramway lines in Switzerland.
Ferrovia Lugano-Ponte Tresa - I don't really know this one personally, but my map tells me that it does not climb any mountain
Meiringen-Innertkirchen Bahn - again a tramway and climbes no mountain

--Kabelleger 13:51, 2 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I have removed the Schöllenenbahn from the swiss section. The Matterhorn-Gotthard-Bahn is already in the list, which includes the Schöllenenbahn. --Kabelleger 08:08, 6 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Switzerland

Martigny-Osières, I can't find this in the German Wiki, nor in the French Wiki, nor in Google. I'll look for it in "JANE'S WORLD RAILWAYS" to see if such a railway exists. Peter Horn 21:05, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

That is because I misspelled Osières. It should read "Orsières". By the way the source of that entry is "Schweizer Gebirgs- und Bergbahnen" by Rolf L. Temming. --Kabelleger 21:16, 21 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

By the way @Peter Horn: I think it does not make sense to include the Dolderbahn - the Pfannenstiel is no mountain (I think we agree on that point?). SZU is another candidate for removal, since the Uetlibergbahn is listed separately and the Sihltalbahn is no mountain railway either. I didn't directly remove these because maybe you have a counter-argument, since you added them? --Kabelleger 21:32, 21 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

From what I read in the German Wiki, I suppose that strictly speaking the Sihltalbahn would be a suburban or rapid transit railway, albeit a very steep one. --Peter Horn 12:53, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

Martigny-O'''r'''sières (Martigny-Orsières) --Peter Horn 12:58, 23 June 2006 (UTC) is listed in the 1969/1970 Of JANE'S as having a 4% grade. --Peter Horn 12:53, 23 June 2006 (UTC) . Also, it is standard gauge. --Peter Horn 12:53, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

I really don't want to be destructive and undo other people's work, but again I think this list is not getting better by making it longer - I'm especially referring to the Switzerland section.

AlpTransit Gotthard (ATG) This is the company that buils the Gotthard Base Tunnel. It does not operate it, so it is for sure no railway company. Even IF they did operate the Gotthard base tunnel, it would not be a mountain railway, because as the name suggests, a base tunnel does not climb a mountain. I removed that entry.
Sihltal-Zürich-Uetliberg-Bahn I already wrote what I think is wrong with that entry. I rearranged it.
we don't need an entry for Lötschbergbahn if we have an entry Bern-Lötschberg-Simplon railway (-> removed)
Should we list names of railway companies (like RhB), or rather particular railway routes? An extreme example is the SBB-CFF-FFS. Sure they have some routes in the mountains (for example the Gotthardbahn), but I wouldn't call SBB a mountain railway. The same is true for BLS, SZU, SOB, to some extent RhB (the Bernina route surely qualifies as mountain railway, the Albula route possibly, Landquart-Chur for sure doesn't), and probably others. I think the latter definitely makes more sense wherever applicable, but that would produce some uncommon names for railway routes (Simplonbahn?). Anyway, I'm not happy at all the way it is.
There are many entries (some admittedly by me) where I wonder wheter (wether, sic --Peter Horn 12:53, 23 June 2006 (UTC)) they make sense. Is railway that does not fully climb a mountain, but uses a tunnel to pass under it, really a mountain railway (i.e. Gotthardbahn, Lötschbergbahn)?

Finally, I don't like the article's definition of mountain railway at all. "[...] that ascends and descends [...]" so if there is only one track to climb the mountain (in case its not a pass, but rather a railway to carry tourists to the top of a mountain), it is no mountain railway according to the definition? (does not make sense) Or a railway that is built through the mountains but does not have big inclines is no mountain railway either? (possibly makes sense, I don't know how a native english speaker interprets "mountain railway"). German speakers, compare the terms "Bergbahn" and "Gebirgsbahn". The former climbes a mountain, the latter just somehow runs through mountainous terrain. Maybe there is a similar distinction in english. In german, RhB would never be generally called a "Bergbahn", however it clearly is a "Gebirgsbahn". Sorry to bother you with that much text on so little details, but I feel that the article fails to adress some basic questions and thus needs some work. I can't do it because I don't know what exactely the article is supposed to say. --Kabelleger 21:15, 3 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

In my humble opinion, any railway that runs for any distance in a mountain valley, even if it runs thru a base tunnel to the next valley, qualifies as a Mountain railway. By that definition, even the CP thru the Canadian Rockies qualifies, and so would the CN thru the Yellow Head Pass. --Peter Horn 12:53, 23 June 2006 (UTC).

So sorry, please make that Yellowhead Pass. No, English does not make the same distinction that German does between the terms "Bergbahn" and "Gebirgsbahn". At least, I'm not aware of any such a distingtion. --Peter Horn 18:33, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

I removed de:Bergbahn & sv:Bergbana because they are irrelevant to this article. These articles (references) refer to funiculars. --Peter Horn 22:07, 22 June 2006 (UTC) --Peter Horn 12:53, 23 June 2006 (UTC) Zahnradbahnen added. --Peter Horn 18:33, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

Split between mountain railway and steep grade railway

It is clear that this article is trying to do two orthogonal things. It is trying to cover steep railways (mostly in intro) and railways in mountains (most of list). Whilst the two are linked, steep does not necessarily imply mountain, nor does mountain imply steep. So I'm going to try splitting the two into two different articles. -- chris_j_wood (talk) 14:37, 4 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

External links modified (February 2018)

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Mountain railway, Romania

Mountain railway#Romania The links to cities are useless and meaningless. Can someone supply the actual names of the lines? Peter Horn User talk 14:40, 24 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Tatra Electric Railways suggestion

I think, that Slovak narrow gauge railway, called Tatra Electric Railway should be included. Please visit Wikipedia page for more info. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.100.156.124 (talk) 12:00, 11 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]