Montserrat Rack Railway

The Cremallera de Montserrat (Catalan cremallera = zip or cog railway ) is a narrow gauge, electric rack railway in Catalonia. Leads up from the town of Monistrol de Montserrat to Montserrat Monastery and overcomes at a maximum gradient of 15.6 percent 550 meters.

The railway was opened in 1892 and sailed the route in time to 1923 with a total of eight locomotives. From the 1940s it was the company financially increasingly worse and a serious accident in 1953 left the already poor transport figures even further reduced significantly. Following the incident, she was decommissioned on 12 May 1957. After years of planning, construction began in 2001, it came on June 6, 2003 re- opening. For five low-floor electric railcars were purchased by Stadler GTW type in Switzerland. They are equipped for adhesion and rack operation. In addition, air-conditioned vehicles offer the maximum of 200 passengers due to the large panoramic windows a good view of the surroundings.

The web travels with a flow system of 1,500 volts DC. The railcars have a top speed of 30 km / h on the rack sections and 45 km / h adhesion operation.

In the first year of operation Cremallera de Montserrat counted 462 964 passengers. The most successful month in the first year was August 2003, 63 692, the leanest of February 2004 only 22 996 travelers. Busy vehicles are when they have direct access to the trips to Barcelona. In the times in between are sometimes only 10-20 people on the go.

Operating company is the Ferrocarrils de la Generalitat de Catalunya ( FGC), which also operates the railway line from Manresa to Barcelona. In Monistrol a track connection was to Monistrol station set up to achieve a direct rail connection and thus can enter the vehicles of Montserratbahn to the main workshop in Martorell. In the former Talbahnhof above Monistrol a museum.