by Diccon Bewes
Whether it’s seen from a passing tour bus or admired for days up close, Mont Blanc is the same as it has always been – big and white – but our relationship with it is not. We have climbed up it (and that “we” does not include me) and skied down it, tunnelled under it and flown over it. We’ve even moved our borders around it: the peak used to be totally within the Kingdom of Savoy-Piedmont-Sardinia, but since 1860 it’s been shared by France and Italy, where it is known rather unsurprisingly as Monte Bianco.
Thomas Cook unwrapped the Alps with his package tours, making them reachable for people with limited time and money. In doing so, he changed the way we interact with the mountains. For many, they are now just another holiday stop, another photo for the digital album, another tick off the wish list. But even if their romantic mystique has diminished, their natural splendour has not. The Alps remain as thrilling and dazzling as ever, no matter why or how people come to admire them.
Patients would sit for up to ten hours a day in Leukerbad’s hot baths
FOUR
IN HOT WATER
There are many mineral springs in Switzerland, much resorted to by the Swiss themselves and by foreigners, but treated with utter neglect by the English, not one in a thousand of whom ever goes through a course of one of these baths.
—Murray Handbook
Almost any route into Switzerland is a scenic one. Well, perhaps not the motorway from Germany into Basel, although that has been improved in the last few years. But enter the country from most other directions and you are spoiled by an unparalleled view of lakes and/or mountains that makes you want to see more. Some routes have become famous in their own right, such as the Great St Bernard Pass, with its barrel-toting dogs and hospitable monks. Others have slowly become less significant, bypassed by shorter, faster ways around (or under) the mountains; for example the one between Chamonix and Martigny. Here there’s no motorway or huge tunnel, just an ordinary road and a rack railway. It’s a journey that still takes time, one that encourages you to enjoy the views at a slower pace, and for that the Mont-Blanc Express is perfect. Although it does indeed go to the foot of that mountain, it’s express in name only; and as we are travelling in the opposite direction, for us this really is the slow train to Switzerland.
By the time we set off it’s late afternoon, a full 12 hours behind Miss Jemima. She had been “aroused at four a.m. by the tinkling of bells of a herd of cattle as they passed through the village”, with a long day ahead. No train or carriage for her, as neither road nor railway had been built. Instead there were four mules for nine people, so each could ride and walk alternately, along with the same guide as the day before. A 5am start for the 25-mile journey over the Forclaz Pass was an impressive achievement. The walk up to Montenvers had been but an appetiser for the hike over the border into Switzerland, a hike that she liked:
“More than one sawmill, the only sign of machinery by the way, was worked by an active stream that flowed from the cascade and which, as we advanced, dashed over precipices and giant boulders that have been hurled from the mountain heights above. The margin of the path edges over a ravine, and passes under a rock-hewn tunnel overhanging a dark gorge, many many hundreds of feet below.”
This is a wild part of the Alps, one where you half expect to come across a witch’s cottage tucked away in the “dark mountain forests”, or feel the gaze of a wolf’s eyes on your neck. Even on the sunniest day, these dense tracts of pine trees are filled with foreboding as they crowd right down to the path’s edge. But, despite the sporadic deep shadows, walking up was hard work on a hot day. After toiling up past the forbidding Tête Noire, the travellers could at least rest in the shade at the top of the pass. And Miss Jemima’s first comment about Switzerland? “These refreshments, laid out in tempting array at every little chalet we pass, form quite a considerable item in Swiss expenses.” No change there, then.
Crossing over the Alps: on horse or on foot were the only options in Miss Jemima’s time
It was downhill all the way after that, but seemingly just as bad, if not worse, for their feet:
“Each short turn but reveals a path of multiplied length instead of a direct incline, which path is rugged with loose stones which threaten to make mincemeat of our shoe soles. Even the mules are again discarded, for the fatigue of a descent on a mule exceeds the same taken on foot. In fact, one mule discarded its rider, though, to give the animal his due, there was some display of oriental grace in the camel-like kneel with which he preceded his nonchalant roll across the path.”
No wonder that by the time they reached Martigny that evening, she noted that “with our hunger we felt our fatigue”. Thomas Cook wrote that “none but the strong and agile should attempt many of the celebrated Passes”, and the Junior United Alpine Club had passed that test. The ladies had on average walked 17 miles, the rest being on mule-back, while Mr James walked the entire 25 miles. Now I understand completely why they didn’t carry anything more than a knapsack.
Their route across the Forclaz Pass is today taken by the modern road as it switchbacks its way up and over the hills to Martigny. Many walkers prefer the path down the neighbouring valley, a deep gorge carved by the River Trient. That’s also the way the train goes, diverging from the road shortly after the Swiss border at Le Châtelard. The line threads its way along the top of the ravine, past acres of untouched forest and through villages balanced precariously along the cliff edge. An untamed landscape of waterfalls and precipices is quite a contrast to the lights and crowds of Chamonix. This is surely one of Switzerland’s great train rides, and I’m left wondering why it isn’t better known.
Is it simply a case of being overshadowed by lines that are older, higher or steeper? This cog railway, between Martigny and Chamonix, opened on 20 August 1906, making it one of the later ones. By then the Swiss had long since conquered the likes of Pilatus, with the world’s steepest rack railway, and were halfway up inside the Eiger to Jungfraujoch, Europe’s highest train station. The high point of the Mont-Blanc Express is only 1224m, an altitude that leaves many other trains looking down on it. Or maybe it’s the name. Until 1990, it was the plain old Martigny-Châtelard Line, which makes it sound like a suburban commuter train. The Swiss don’t like to oversell things, but thank goodness someone somewhere sexed up the name of this train.
It was a 25-mile hike over the Tête Noire pass from France into Switzerland
A few months after passing through on the train, I can’t resist coming back by car to drive over the Forclaz Pass. Naturally, it isn’t so different. The valley’s a bit wider, the slopes shallower than the Trient gorge, but there’s the same abundance of greenery and feeling of being away from the real world. That is, until you reach the top and find a café full of bikers where Miss Jemima once sat in the shade eating wild strawberries. And I mustn’t forget the souvenir shop: it might be a little off the tourist track, but you can buy a cow-shaped mug or a Swiss-flag tea cosy; made in China, sold all across Switzerland.
Far more interesting than a pink Swiss army knife (really, it was pink) are the information boards showing the local fortifications installed as part of Fortress Switzerland during the Second World War. From Forclaz down to Le Châtelard, a network of 15 concrete bunkers was built, complete with anti-tank guns and underground quarters. The road and railway were both mined, anti-aircraft guns sat on the hilltops and anti-tank barriers sprang up – all in case the Nazis decided to invade from the west through France. Rather surprisingly, the board says that the fortifications stayed until 1989, “in case of conflict between NATO and the Soviet Union”.
Both routes, either over the Forclaz or down the Trient, lead to the same place: the Rhone valley. After trundling through rugged hills and steep-sided valleys, the wide expanse of cultivated fields and horizontal streets comes as quite a surprise, and a reminder of civilisation. Miss Jemima declares seeing the Rhone valley for the first time thus:
“one of the views of the Alps … like a mirage, unrolled before
us. The furrowed mountain ridges are draped with pines and mantled with craggy stones, while in the background, crested with snow against a sky of azure blue, rise the Diablerets, the Strubel and the naked Gemini, presenting a scene of vast and solitary grandeur.”
The view from the Forclaz road is maybe not as majestic as it once was, with Martigny sprawling out along the valley and the motorway leaving a scar as far as the eye can see. But the succession of fir-clad hills and jagged peaks still frames the picture perfectly, and the ruler-straight road has a certain Roman charm.
Martigny marked a crucial turning point on the original tour, and not just because it’s where the River Rhone makes a near 90-degree turn and heads north to Lake Geneva. Up until now, this had been a Conducted Tour under the guidance of Thomas Cook himself. After almost a week of shepherding the ever-decreasing group around, he was leaving the last participants to their own devices and returning to London, via Lausanne and Neuchâtel. As he travelled back round Lake Geneva, he must have been contemplating what he’d achieved. The tour had been a leap into the unknown, almost a leap of faith given his dire need for success if he were to survive financially. After the losses incurred in Paris and Germany, and the loss of Scotland as a destination, Switzerland had to succeed.
I think he would have had cause to be rather satisfied with how the trip had gone, given he had originally stated he did “not intend to take more than 25–50 in the first Swiss party”. Without much planning or preparation, he had succeeded in taking 130 or so tourists by boat and train to Paris, around 60 of whom carried on with him to Geneva by train; of those, half travelled on in carriages to Chamonix and then the final eight were hardy enough to walk to Martigny and were now ready and willing to venture off without him. Cook had certainly come a long way, in every sense, since taking teetotallers to Loughborough 22 years earlier, particularly given how many setbacks he had overcome in the process.
However, he wasn’t the only one with tours to Switzerland. His arch rival was Henry Gaze, who offered a very similar service: in 1863 he was selling “Switzerland for 10 Guineas” tours, although Cook was disparaging about them. Comparing his tours with Gaze’s, he wrote: “the provision is really luxurious in contrast with his third class travelling, hard walking and low hotel charges”. In his book Switzerland: How to See it for Ten Guineas, Gaze is clear about how to save money – overnight train trips, staying on the top floors of hotels – and as he put it, “if you would enjoy it to the utmost, and would appreciate health and strength, economy and independence, ROUGH IT. I say emphatically ROUGH IT!” (his caps, not mine). Gaze was serious competition for many years, but after he retired the business went rapidly down into bankruptcy. Cook was left to rule the world.
However, when he left his first Swiss tour Cook probably had no idea of what it would lead to. He should have had some inkling, given the immediate and enthusiastic response to that first announcement, but after his previous calamities he might well have been cautiously pessimistic at best. His goal was clear: to bring Europe within reach of the masses: “My constant aim has been to render excursion and tourist travelling as cheap, as easy, as safe and as pleasant as circumstances would allow.” That was a noble aim, but would it pay off? The answer lay not only with him but with seven others. With Cook gone, the Junior United Alpine Club was now all that remained of the original Conducted Tour.
This group were going to set off across Switzerland together, but first they stopped in Martigny for two hours of rest and rejuvenation. For our part, my mother and I decide to carry on towards our final destination that day, Sion. The sun, which we were so overjoyed to see that morning, is beginning to desert us once again. After a day zooming up and down mountains, I can think of nothing better than finding a bed for the night and something to eat, preferably in that order, given that it’s already late enough for the shops to be closing.
The train ride from Martigny along the Rhone to Sion only lasts 14 minutes, but is significant as it was the first train wholly within Switzerland taken by our original tourists. And it would be the last for some time. Back in 1863, when the line to Sion was itself only three years old, the Swiss train network did not yet extend into the mountains, so for the next ten days the visitors walked, rode, took carriages and boarded boats around the country. That’s very different from how today’s tourists experience Switzerland, most of whom travel by train, helping to make the Swiss network one of the most used in the world. It’s a remarkable turnaround for a country that arrived very late to the idea of a national railway system.
In 1850 Switzerland was still recovering from the Sonderbund War and, despite the new federal constitution, the cantons were often at loggerheads over a whole range of issues. Building the railways with any sense of national coordination was particularly problematic, as nearly every line had to cross one or more cantonal borders, and getting everyone to agree on the route and costs was no easy feat. The Murray Handbook explained:
The real difficulty consisted in the extraordinary and incredible jealousies between not only the different cantons, but the different communities or parishes, and the legal difficulties in obtaining the land.
There was also no national rail company – the Swiss Federal Railways, or SBB, was not created until 1902 – and the federal government was only two years old, so it was not yet that strong.
The government did make one crucial decision, however, and commissioned an independent report on the future of the transport system in Switzerland, not simply as a practical solution to a political problem but also as a means of achieving economic progress through national unification. It called in the experts, and that meant English engineers. It’s hard to believe these days, but in 1850 the British train network was the envy of the world, already 25 years old and 10,000km long. Britain had invented the railway, or more precisely George Stephenson (with his son Robert) did when his passenger train line between Stockton and Darlington in northeast England opened in September 1825. In doing so, he helped standardise the distance between the rails at 1435mm, which became the normal gauge for many railways around the world.
In 1850, Switzerland had 25km of railways. That was it: a single line from Zurich to Baden. It had opened in 1847 and was known as the Spanisch-Brötli-Bahn (Spanish roll railway), not because any Spaniards or bread rolls were involved in its construction but because of a pastry speciality baked only in Baden. This was much sought after in Zurich, so servants were sent to Baden by train to buy the rolls and bring them back for their masters to enjoy; the 90-minute round trip was far better than walking there and back, as they had to do before the train. While the Brötli-Bahn was the first Swiss line, there was already one other station in Switzerland, in Basel, where the French terminus for the Alsace line had been located since 1845. There were various ideas and plans for a larger network, but nothing concrete. Whereas Britain had sound economic reasons for building train lines, such as to connect factories and ports or coal mines and the main cities, Switzerland had no mines, small cities and few big factories. It also had squabbling cantons. What caused the problems in Switzerland wasn’t the geography but the politics. An outsider was needed to come and show them the way – enter Robert Stephenson.
Along with Henry Swinburne, Stephenson proposed a cruciform network north of the Alps, with one line running north–south from Basel to Lucerne and the other west–east on a Thun–Bern–Zurich–Lake Constance axis. The latter had to run along the south bank of the River Aare, which was the first line of defence against any potential invasion from the north, so the railway would be defensible and usable in wartime. Steamboats on the main lakes and short train lines between them would indirectly link Geneva and Chur to the network. Those parts south of the Alps, such as Ticino, were deemed beyond reach. Central to the plan was the small town of Olten, near Basel, which lay at the heart of the giant X.
In the end, the Swiss government favoured a cantonal solution rather than a national one, with private money financing the lines. The fina
l result would turn out to be something very similar to the British plan but with vital improvements, such as direct lines to Geneva and Chur rather than leapfrogging over the lakes. A new railway law was passed in 1852 and then it was full steam ahead for the various train companies, with “many of the lines being executed by English engineers and with English capital”, as the Murray Handbook notes.
The first project was to link Basel (and so the French network) with the rest of Switzerland, a scheme that involved building the first Swiss rail tunnel. Again English engineering expertise was needed, this time in the shape of Thomas Brassey, the mastermind behind the 2.5km-long Hauenstein Tunnel. It wasn’t an easy job. A fire in the tunnel killed 63 men and delayed the project by two years. When it finally opened in 1858, however, it prompted a railway rush across Switzerland. By the late 1860s, over 650km of lines were already built, far beyond the Stephenson plan, from Lake Geneva to Lake Constance, from Basel to Chur, and from Neuchâtel up to the watchmaking town of La Chaux-de-Fonds.
And it wouldn’t be long before the greatest Swiss rail project of the century – the Gotthard line – got underway, this time with a Swiss engineer in charge. Sadly, Louis Favre didn’t live to see the grand opening of his masterpiece, the Gotthard Tunnel, on 22 May 1882; he had died of a heart attack inside the tunnel three years earlier. In 30 years the Swiss had catapulted their network from one short railway to a masterpiece of rail engineering that astounded the world.
It was British know-how that helped the Swiss railway network in its infancy, from planning the lines to building the tunnels, and even building the locomotives; Charles Brown co-founded the SLM train works in Winterthur, which produced many Swiss trains. So it is deliciously ironic that when a line to the top of Mt Snowdon, the highest peak in Wales, was announced in 1894, the technology and expertise came from Switzerland (just as it had at Montenvers). A few years ago I took a steam train to the top of Snowdon and the locomotive was one of the original ones, bought in Switzerland. From their slow beginnings, the Swiss had quickly learnt how to send trains up, under or round the mountains, something they have been doing very well ever since.