Rhaetian Railway 20 years ago cab view Arosa to Chur 12 June 1994

The train descends from Arosa to Chur on grades up to 6% without rack & pinion and passes over numerous tunnels, viaducts and cliff edges. The views are spectacular. Even more so when seen from the cab! The Regenerative braking system and the train handling are most interesting. Also included are some line-side views in Arosa & Chur. I have attempted to identify many locations using Google & Bing maps and satellite/aerial views. I would welcome any corrections. Markus, Gürbetal has provided the following detailed information about the trains:
The train leaving Arosa station at 1:40 (and seen again at 21:07) is remarkable. At the head is ABe 4/4 487 or 488, the motor coaches delivered in 1973 with Berninbahn-carbodies and Arosabahn bogies. The electrical gear was as far as possible identical to ABDe 4/4 484-486 from 1957/58. After the change to ac 487 and 488 were sold to CJ where they pulled waste container trains. They are just now being replaced by the second-hand motor coaches that CJ bought from FW. After 40 years at
the end of their career is quite early for Swiss motor coaches but
considering the age of some parts of the electrical gear (freshed up parts from old motor coach 487' ex 486') it's a good age.
Behind the ABe 4/4 there is D2 4054, a wooden luggage van with
underframe from 1897 that had been fitted with dc heating and MU wiring in 1974 to replace even older D 4002 as a reserve van. Next is one of the peak traffic coaches (Spitzenverkehrswagen) B 2269-2273, built in 1987 on old underframes (except 2272-73) and bogies with components from bus building. Last coach is one of the aluminium EW I B 2315-2319 that were always assigned to the Arosa line and were MU wired right from the beginning and thus delivered in red in 1969.
The use of such a consist in regular trains indicates that one of the three driving trailers was in Landquart. The full use of regenerative braking requires the coaches to be at the down-side from the motor coach.
Normal Summer consist was ABDe or ABe 481-488 - DZ 4231-31/4004 - B 2315-19 - ABt 1701-03
In Winter an additional A 1253-56 (GEX coaches in Summer) was put in and often a second ABDe or ABe added (in MU, of course) so that additional coaches could have been pulled up to Arosa.
Additional trains were handled by the remaining ABDe/ABe 481-488 or by Bernina ABe 4/4 30..34 that could be switched for use under 2200 V dc. You can see two of them at 21:03 on the right hand side.
The Arosabahn trains were equipped with
- vacuum brakes for the whole train (but on the motor coach the vacuum pipe actuated the air brake with a special valve)
- regenerative brake
- rheostatic brake (at moments where it was impossible to feed back current to the catenary)
- direct air brake for motor coach and driving trailer only
- electro magnetic rail brake fed by a battery, on motor coach only
- and yes, each vehicle had a hand brake (only used for parking)...

[@arnfriedbogsch8880]

Immer sehenswert danke, ich kenne diese Strecke, 1957 Jahre, als ich als Bäcker gearbeitet habe, in langwies

[@steved2551]

great to see again spent much of my childhood in arosa with my parents best train ride in the world

[@david-othen]

steved2551 Glad it brings back memories.

[@Yves948]

Many thanks for publishing. Splendid quality for 20 years ago.

[@david-othen]

Thank you - I did some adjustments and sharpening in order to impove the video.

[@EldersOok]

Brilliant ! Thanks very much.

[@david-othen]

Glad you found it informative. It is probably no longer possible to ride in the cab with all the terrorist events.