Alp Grüm

Alp Grüm is a station, a hamlet and a viewpoint at once, at 2,091 m (6,860 ft) on the south side of the Bernina Pass. Except in summer it can only be reached by train, and there is no road at any time of year. RhB lists it as an unstaffed station, so the platform and the viewing area beside it are open to anyone who arrives by train or on foot.

What people come for is the curve. Immediately south of the station the line swings through 180 degrees and starts its descent into Val Poschiavo (Puschlav); from the south end of the viewing area you watch the tracks curve around the mountainside, with the Palü Glacier and Lago Palü beyond. Cavaglia, the next station, is clearly visible 400 m (1,300 ft) below and 1.5 km (0.9 mi) away in a straight line, but 6 km (3.7 mi) away by rail, which gives an idea of how hard the line works on this slope.

The practical rhythm is set by the timetable: one regional train each way per hour plus several Bernina Express trains per day, with crossings at the station itself. Check the RhB departures board before settling in, and plan a return train, since there is no other way back in winter.

The station stands at the tree line and marks the last stop before the Italian-speaking valley of Poschiavo. To the south the ground drops away into the Puschlav; across it hangs the Palü Glacier below Piz Palü, with the turquoise Lago Palü (1,923 m / 6,309 ft) on the slope below the station. The 1923 station building, with its buffet and hotel, is the only substantial structure in sight.

The Bernina line reaches this point from the pass through a chain of galleries and short tunnels (the Sassal Mason Gallery, 348 m, among them) before the Grüm Gallery and the station itself. From here onward it descends at up to 7 % through tight curves and spiral tunnels.

At this altitude the weather changes quickly: cloud can rise out of the valley and hide the glacier within minutes, and wind across the open viewing area is common.

The section of the Bernina line between Ospizio Bernina and Poschiavo, on which Alp Grüm lies, was opened on 5 June 1910 by the Bernina Railway Company. Alp Grüm was created as a crossing loop during construction, and the present station building, with its buffet and hotel, opened in 1923.

The Bernina Railway Company, weakened financially, was taken over by the Rhaetian Railway in 1943, which then modernised the line and renewed its summit section. The Bernina line is the highest adhesion railway in Europe and, with inclines of up to 7 %, one of the steepest adhesion railways in the world: it climbs without a rack. On 7 July 2008 it was inscribed, together with the Albula line, on the UNESCO World Heritage List as the Rhaetian Railway in the Albula / Bernina Landscapes.

The 180-degree curve at Alp Grüm is part of that engineering answer: rather than tunnel through the mountain, the line doubles back on itself in the open to lose height, and the station sits exactly at the turn.

Few stations anywhere put a working mountain railway, a glacier and a 180-degree curve in one view from the platform. Alp Grüm does it at 2,091 m with no road, so everyone who stands here arrived by train or on foot. Cavaglia, 400 m lower and 1.5 km away in a straight line, is 6 km away by rail: the descent is visible, loop by loop, from the station.

The station is also a crossing loop on a single-track line, so trains in both directions stop and pass here, and the same spot works for arrivals, departures and meets.