COMMENTS TO MY PAGE "ART POSTCARDS WITH A RAILWAY MOTIVE"

Chemin de fer du Chamonix - Montenvers

Chemin de fer du Chamonix - Montenvers (The Montenvers Railway)  a rack railway line in the Haute-Savoie department of France. The line runs from a connection with the French state railway SNCF, in Chamonix, to the Hotel de Montenvers station, at the Mer de Glace, at an altitude of 1,913 m. The line is 5.1 km long and has a track gauge of 1,000 mm. It is a rack and adhesion railway, using the Strub rack system to overcome a height difference of 871 m. Except for the terminal stations, which are operated in adhesion mode, the line has a gradient varying from 11% to 22%. The line is operated by the Compagnie du Mont-Blanc [fr] which also manages the Mont Blanc Tramway and many ski lifts in the Mont Blanc region. The first section of the line as far as Caillet opened in 1908 and the line was completed in 1909. The trains originally were drawn by steam locomotives built by Swiss Locomotive and Machine Works (SLM) who supplied six 2-4-2T locomotives between 1908 and 1923. By 1953 the line was electrified, using an overhead line at 11 kV AC and 50 Hz, and service is provided by six electric railcars and trailers and three diesel locomotives, all from SLM. Trains run at 14 to 20 km/h and take 20 minutes for the journey. A cable car connects the station at Montenvers with the glacier which is tunnelled out at that point enabling tourists to walk inside the glacier.

The Mer de Glace is situated on the northern slopes of the Mont Blanc mountain range in the French Alps. With the exception of the Aletsch Glacier on the Swiss side of the Alpine mountain range, the Mer de Glace is the second longest glacier in the Alps. At 7.5km long and 200 meters deep, the world-famous ‘Sea of Ice| is France’s largest glacier.

November 26nd 2024

 

 
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.