göschenen

the trackwork north of the tunnel is finished!

's chileli vo wasse

wassen is the smallest station yet, but probably one of the most peculiar ones. sitting in between two tunnel loops, the trains go past the station three times on different heights and gain around 150 metres without even leaving the village.

the loops brought extraordinary fame to the small church of wassen, which can be seen three times from different perspectives while the train wriggles itself around the village.

1 106 metres above the sea

after the track builders lost their sense of direction shortly in great fog, they reached göschenen at 1 106 metres above sea level.

wanderer im nebelmoor

exhaust effects

track in gurtnellen is done

after i have rebuild the complete section between amsteg and gurtnellen twice due to slight height inaccuracies, i could finally put the track down in gurtnellen itself.

track reaches gurtnellen

and do you know what is being manufactured in the tiny remote village of gurtnellen?
this is...

no really, some parts of the rocket engines are being made there by the small company schmelzmetall ag.

as you'd expect from rocket scientists, they are based in an old and abandoned looking building and can't even be reached by truck. so the rocket engines (well, parts of them) leave gurtnellen on the gotthard railway!

the 26 o/oo climb to gurtnellen is under way

but over two hours were spent for just 4 kilometers of plain track, even though i'm following the real line with the help of aerial images!