Cremallera de Montserrat
( Montserrat Rack Railway )The Montserrat Rack Railway (Spanish and Catalan: Cremallera de Montserrat, IPA: [kɾəməˈʎeɾə ðə munsəˈrat]) is a mountain railway line north-west of Barcelona in Catalonia. The line runs from Monistrol de Montserrat to the mountain-top monastery of Montserrat.
The line is 5 km (3.1 mi) long and has a rail gauge of 1,000 mm (3 ft 3+3⁄8 in). The first 1 km (0.6 mi) of the line, between Monistrol and the only intermediate station at Monistrol Vila, is operated by conventional adhesion. The remainder of the line is operated as a rack railway using the Abt system, overcoming a height difference of 550 m (1,804 ft) with a maximum gradient of 15.6%. The line is electrified with an overhead supply at 1500 V DC.
The line is ...Read more
The Montserrat Rack Railway (Spanish and Catalan: Cremallera de Montserrat, IPA: [kɾəməˈʎeɾə ðə munsəˈrat]) is a mountain railway line north-west of Barcelona in Catalonia. The line runs from Monistrol de Montserrat to the mountain-top monastery of Montserrat.
The line is 5 km (3.1 mi) long and has a rail gauge of 1,000 mm (3 ft 3+3⁄8 in). The first 1 km (0.6 mi) of the line, between Monistrol and the only intermediate station at Monistrol Vila, is operated by conventional adhesion. The remainder of the line is operated as a rack railway using the Abt system, overcoming a height difference of 550 m (1,804 ft) with a maximum gradient of 15.6%. The line is electrified with an overhead supply at 1500 V DC.
The line is operated by the Ferrocarrils de la Generalitat de Catalunya (FGC).
A line on this route was originally opened in 1892. Competition arrived in 1930, in the form of the Aeri de Montserrat, an aerial cable car that also carries passengers to the monastery. A narrow road also reaches the monastery. After poor financial results and an accident in 1953, the rack railway line was closed on 12 May 1957.[1]
However over time the Aeri and road became unable to handle the increasing number of visitors to the monastery. After many years of planning, a program began to rebuild the rack railway in 2001, and the line re-opened in its modern form on 6 June 2003. In its first 12 months of operation, the Montserrat Rack Railway carried 462,964 passengers.[1]
The heaviest traffic was in August 2003 with 63,692 passengers, and the lightest in February 2004 with 22,996 passengers.[citation needed]
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