European Railroad Discussion > Possible Major Landslide Affecting RhB Albula Line in Switzerland

About a year ago, I made this post about a section of the RhB Albula Line built on unstable ground: 

https://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?17,5321830,5321830#msg-5321830

This week, the people who live in Brienz Brinzauls above that section of the railway are being evacuated because the mountain is on the verge of collapsing:

https://blogs.agu.org/landslideblog/2023/05/10/brienz-rockslide-1/

In the photo in the linked article, the rail line is adjacent to the road in the bottom lower-left corner. 



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/10/23 14:05 by Ray_Murphy.

Brienz is nowhere near (about 175 miles from) the Rhaetischebahn and the Albula Line.  It is on the north shore of Lake Brienz between Interlaken and Meirigen.  The town in question is a small village inland quite a distance from the main town of Brienz.  The railroad is located along the lake and is the meter gauge line that comnects Interlaken and Meirigen and is not run by or connected with the RhB.  The railroad follows the shoreline of the lake and is situated  quite a way from the danger zone.  The steam powered rack line from Brienz to the top of the Rothorn might be more likely to be affected by a land slip but there is nothing mentioned in the alert about that line being in danger. 



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/11/23 12:52 by birdman.

birdman Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Brienz is nowhere near (about 175 miles from) the
> Rhaetischebahn and the Albula Line. 

Brienz/Brinzauls and Brienz are two different places.

Ray 

Very interesting. Hope it stops and the villagers can go back home.  It's been 40 years since the Thistle Slide in Spanish Fork Canyon, UT, which displaced the D&RGW at the toe of the slide... Looks like the rail line here may be similarly on the toe of the slide, both slides are about 2 km top to bottom. 

Location

I've bicycled on that road next to the RR tracks, very pretty!  A parade of mountains on the horizon, and a parade of trains on the tracks alongside the road.  

https://goo.gl/maps/rfoU4A8Z2kCDdBQc8
https://www.google.com/maps/@46.6614112,9.599903,938m/data=!3m1!1e3
(The location in Ray's 2021 post)
https://en.mapy.cz/zakladni?x=9.5842975&y=46.6754586&z=14
https://www.openrailwaymap.org/?style=standard&lat=46.66410509543142&lon=9.602179527282715&zoom=14
https://opentopomap.org/#map=15/46.66357/9.59724
https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=15/46.6648/9.5875

For comparison, Thistle, UT
https://opentopomap.org/#map=15/40.00096/-111.50119

A few mainstream media links 
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/10/world/europe/mountain-brienz-switzerland-evacuation.html
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-65533681

Ted in OR

 



Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 05/11/23 18:40 by gobbl3gook.

Link to Swiss government topo map 

Definitely shows the cragginess of the mountain above the village!  

https://map.geo.admin.ch/?lang=en&topic=ech&bgLayer=ch.swisstopo.pixelkarte-farbe&layers=ch.swisstopo.zeitreihen,ch.bfs.gebaeude_wohnungs_register,ch.bav.haltestellen-oev,ch.swisstopo.swisstlm3d-wanderwege,ch.astra.wanderland-sperrungen_umleitungen&layers_opacity=1,1,1,0.8,0.8&layers_visibility=false,false,false,false,false&layers_timestamp=18641231,,,,&E=2764832.69&N=1170839.07&zoom=8



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/11/23 18:31 by gobbl3gook.

The small village was indeed formerly known as Brienz in German, or Brinzauls in Romansch.
Serveral small villages in the area have been consolidated into the community of Albula/Alvra
The danger level is currently Orange, the next higher level is Blue. If that is invoked the Rhätische
Bahn will be closed along with the main highway.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/12/23 00:03 by SOO6617.

At midnight Thursday night the danger level in this landslide zone moved to Phase Blue, when a large slide came down 
stopping just short of some homes. The village fortunately had been evacuated. After inspections on Friday the threat
level was lowered back to Orange, as the 2 million cubic meter slide had reduced the threat for now.