Question on Erzbergbahn railway, Austria

softwerkslex · **Posted:** Tue Dec 10, 2019 6:33 am

I just stumbled on this video of a railway in Austria, the Erzbergbahn. It was primarily a line for hauling mineral ores (iron?). It ran with steam until 1976-78. What interests me, is that the line was built as a cog railway, but the gradient was only 0.71%. In fact, when steam was phased out, they removed the rack and used adhesion only diesels.

Why was this line built with a rack?

https://youtu.be/K3qQTN0_lxw

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erzbergbahn

R. Hahn · **Joined:** Sun Aug 22, 2004 5:01 pm **Posts:** 199

The max gradient is 7.1%.

softwerkslex · **Posted:** Tue Dec 10, 2019 7:55 am

R. Hahn wrote:

The max gradient is 7.1%.

That explains it. Must have been a translation error.