History
Before there was a railway
The Brienz Rothorn was widely known already prior to the openig of the Rothorn railway. In 1829 the point where the three cantons of Bern, Lucerne and Obwalden meet, was marked by means of a granite stone. Apart from the Faulhorn, the Rothorn was one the most famous lookout points of the Bernese Oberland. How and when the Rothorn got its name (wich in English means «red horn, red bugle») is uncertain. Legends has it that A.D. 1380 alpine herdsmen from Obwalden who owned alps on Lucerne territory, boiled an inhabitant of Entlebuch in a pot filled with whey. On the occasion of another such attack, a guard is sais to have blown his bugle so strongly that he died of the effort and his bugle turned red with his blood. In Switzerland there are three dozen mountains by the name of «Rothorn», 17 in the Valais and 11 in the Bernese Oberland.
Builder of the railway
When the Rigi railway was completed in 1871, this proved that steam locomotives can conquer even mountains. The Bernese Oberland wanted to keep up with central Switzerland as fas as tourism is concerned, and in 1889 a committee was formed from touristically minded Brienz citizens led by A. Lindner, a German engineer who lived in Lucerne. He was fascinated by the idea of bulding the Rothorn railway, the worlds highest' montain railway. Mr. Lindner was a highloy qualified railway expert and worked for instance on the Gotthard railway. In 1890 he wrote the «Memorandum concerning the project of a railway to the Rothorn». T. Bertschinger, a master builder from Lenzburg, was put in charge oft the construction work. He had already gathered experience by building the Seetal railway and therefore took the risk of accepting the job including supply of the rolling stock for a lump-sum price. Later on he also built the Lauterbrunnen-Wegen railway.
Railway construction
In 1889 the Swiss Feral Assembly granted a license for the construction of the railway and already in summer of the same year the work started. A report from that year describes the railway constuction in the followin words: «Now there was a great hustle and bustle on the mountain and everywhere, above and below, on the rocks and along the gravel slopes, men started to work. Feeding the workers was no easy task either. There was even a shortage of hospitalbeds for the injured. The largest number of workers employed at one time was 640, mostly Italiens who were accommondated in new barracks and old alpine herdsmen's cabins to suit their simple yet practical way of life».
As early as 31 October 1891, the locomotive of the train which carried materials reached the Kulm - the summit station. The 7.60-km track with 6 tunnels was built in a period of just over one year.
