Zentralbahn

The Zentralbahn is a Swiss railway company that owns and operates two connecting railway lines in Central Switzerland and the Bernese Oberland. It was created on January 1, 2005, with the acquisition of the independently owned Luzern–Stans–Engelberg line, and the Brünig line of the Swiss Federal Railways. The company has its headquarters in Stansstad. The railway owns the infrastructure of the 74 km (46 mi) long inter-regional Brünig line, which links Lucerne and Interlaken over the Brünig Pass, and the 25 km (16 mi) long Luzern–Stans–Engelberg line from Hergiswil, on the Brünig line some 9 km (5.6 mi) out of Lucerne, to Engelberg. Both lines are built to the 1,000 mm (3 ft 3+3⁄8 in) metre gauge, and use rack railway technology to climb their steepest gradients, although most of both lines uses conventional adhesion. The railway operates two hourly InterRegio express services, one between Lucerne and Interlaken, and one between Lucerne and Engelberg. It also operates two half-hourly services of the Lucerne S-Bahn, the S4 between Lucerne and Wolfenschiessen and the S5 between Lucerne and Giswil. During the rush hour, there are additional trains named S41, S44 and S55. At the Interlaken end of the line, an hourly Regio service is operated as far as Meiringen. Only the two InterRegio services traverse the company's rack sections and require rack equipped stock.