Engineering Wonders of the World
Volume III

THE EIGERWAND STATION, JUNGFRAU RAILWAY. (Photo, by courtesy of Swiss Federal Railways.) TWO REMARKABLE ALPINE MOUNTAIN RAILWAYS. The Fell Railway. MANY probably have forgotten, and many more have never heard of, the first railway built over the Alps —the Fell Railway—which forty years ago climbed the pass of the Mont Cenis, and for three years car- ried the international traffic between France and Italy, and also the Indian mail, as regularly and safely as any of its present-day successors. This little line, with its 3 feet 7 inch gauge, was the pioneer of Alpine railways ; and that its name is little remembered may be ascribed to the fact that it ceased to run in 1871, the year in which the Mont Cenis tunnel was opened. Soon after the first appearance of the steam locomotive in France, engineers began to give attention to the apparently impossible task of linking up the railways on the north with those on the south side of the Alps. The different Alpine Schemes for passes were studied carefully, a over and m 1840 it was decided to construct the Mont Cenis tunnel line. As we have noticed on a previous page (vol. iii., p. 149), actual work on the line did not com- mence until 1857, and at that time it was expected that twenty-five years might be consumed in boring the tunnel. So urgently was the railway communication needed that an English engineer, Mr. J. B. Fell, conceived the idea of carrying a railway over the moun- tain, for dealing with the traffic until the tunnel should be finished—or, if the tunnel proved impracticable, to serve as a permanent