Corcovado Rack Railway

The Corcovado mountain railway on the 710 -meter Corcovado, one of the landmarks of Rio de Janeiro.

The meter-gauge cog railway to the Riggenbach system was opened in 1884. The summit could be reached, however, only from 1 July 1885. The contract for the railway had already been issued on January 7, 1882 by Emperor Dom Pedro II. The two engineers Teixeira Soares and Francesco Passos received a concession for the construction of the railway. The route is single track and has some passing places which are partly used as breakpoints ( part only for residents ). A special feature of the alternative location Paineiras which is designed as a " push-back " tracks. In 1910 the railway was electrified by the Sulzer AG of Switzerland. She was thus the first electric railway in Brazil.

The Corcovado Mountain Railway is one of the few railways that operate with AC. It therefore has two upper lines ( two phases), as well as the Jungfrau Railway and Gornergrat Bahn; the third phase is the rail.

The starting point of the track is located at a height of 40 m above sea level. With an average gradient of 16.7 %, the train runs the 3824 meter long track in 25 minutes to 680 m altitude. The steepest section is steep up to 30 %. Uphill is driven with a maximum of 15 downhill with 12 km / h. In 1979 at the Swiss Locomotive and Machine Works (SLM ) acquired in Winterthur vehicles maximum 121 sleeps.

The cog railway crossing when driving to the top of Corcovado opened in 1961, the National Park of 40 km ² of the Tijuca rainforest.

( The far reaching into the city of Rio de Janeiro National Park, thus their "green lung", is the third largest city park in the world ).

On the plateau of the summit stands on a pedestal the imposing and almost any point in the city to be seen Christ the Redeemer.