Switzerland and Norway Signal a Wider European Shift as Mountain Rail Routes Become Destinations in Their Own Right

Written By: Ankita Neogi Khan

Ankita Neogi Khan

With over 15 years of experience in digital media, I bring a strong foundation in language, journalism, and storytelling to travel reporting. A graduate in English (Honours) from Presidency College with a Master's in Journalism and Mass Communication from the University of Calcutta, I began my career as a content curator before transitioning into travel journalism. I specialise in aviation, tourism trends, destination news, and industry insights, combining meticulous research, accuracy, and compelling storytelling to deliver credible, engaging, and insightful content for a global audience.

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September 13, 2026 10:06 GMT+5:30

Europe’s mountain rail routes are moving beyond their traditional transport role as tourism demand increasingly makes the journey part of the destination. Switzerland’s Jungfrau Railway Group welcomed 3.91 million guests in 2025, including 1.06 million at Jungfraujoch. Norway’s Flåm Railway crossed the one-million passenger mark for the first time, recording 1,007,517 journeys. France, meanwhile, saw its tourist-railway network attract millions of passengers, while Austria recorded a record 157.3 million overnight stays across its tourism sector. The trend reaches smaller destinations too. Slovenia’s mountain resorts generated nearly 5.5 million overnight stays in 2025, while Slovakia’s High Tatras continue to combine electric mountain railways with hiking, skiing and sightseeing. Together, these figures reveal a broader shift in European travel.

The Railway Is Becoming the Attraction

For decades, mountain railways mainly solved a practical problem. They carried residents, workers and visitors through difficult terrain where roads were expensive, steep or vulnerable to weather. Today, however, the commercial proposition is changing as travellers increasingly value the landscape viewed from the carriage as much as the destination at the final station.

That change creates what can be called the destinationisation of the railway. Instead of simply taking travellers to a mountain, the railway itself becomes an experience, sightseeing product and reason to travel. This shift also gives destinations a powerful way to distribute visitors without relying entirely on private cars.

The wider European rail market provides a useful backdrop. Eurostat recorded 8.7 billion rail passenger trips across the European Union in 2024, representing 444.5 billion passenger-kilometres. Austria ranked among the EU leaders for passenger journeys relative to population, while France, Germany and Italy generated some of the largest passenger-kilometre totals.

Yet tourist mountain lines occupy a different niche. Their value cannot be measured only by passenger numbers because some operate as public transport, while others sell a premium sightseeing experience. The most revealing comparison therefore examines how rail interacts with hotels, attractions, hiking, skiing and regional tourism.

Switzerland Sets The Premium Benchmark

Switzerland offers perhaps the clearest example of a railway becoming a tourism product in its own right. The Jungfrau Railway Group recorded 3,909,700 guests in 2025, strengthening its position within premium Alpine tourism. Jungfraujoch alone welcomed 1,056,600 visitors, marking the seventh time that the attraction exceeded one million annual visitors.

The commercial figures are equally revealing. The group generated CHF305.7 million in operating income during 2025, while transport income reached CHF216.1 million. Its Jungfraujoch segment produced CHF196.5 million in revenue, demonstrating how transport can sit at the centre of a wider mountain-experience economy.

Switzerland’s broader accommodation market also remains exceptionally strong. Its hotels recorded 43.9 million overnight stays in 2025, up 2.6% year on year. Foreign demand reached a record 22.8 million nights, while Graubünden recorded 2.8% growth.

The lesson is significant for travellers. In Switzerland, the train can be the headline attraction rather than merely the connecting service. The experience also fits premium travel, where panoramic rail journeys, mountain stations, restaurants and excursions can operate as one integrated product.

Austria Expands The Alpine Mobility Model

Austria demonstrates a different model. Here, the railway forms part of an extensive tourism ecosystem linking cities, mountain villages, ski areas, hiking routes and wellness destinations. National tourism reached another record in 2025, with 157.3 million overnight stays and 48.2 million arrivals. International visitors accounted for 33.5 million arrivals.

The country’s mountain infrastructure adds another layer. Austria has 1,118 ropeway installations and 1,530 ski-tows, underlining the density of its Alpine visitor network. Its tourism strategy increasingly emphasises value throughout the year rather than concentrating activity solely in winter.

That distinction matters. A railway connected to a ski resort has one obvious winter function, but a railway linked to hiking, cycling, lakes, wellness and village tourism can create demand across more months. For travellers, this means the most useful mountain railway may not always be the most spectacular one. Its strength may instead lie in how many experiences can be reached without a car.

Norway Turns A Railway Into A Landmark

Norway supplies one of the clearest signals that scenic rail is becoming a destination product. The Flåm Railway recorded 1,007,517 passengers in 2025, crossing one million journeys for the first time in its history.

That milestone is important because Flåm is not a major metropolitan destination. The railway connects Myrdal with Flåm, creating an experience built around dramatic elevation changes, waterfalls, valleys and fjord landscapes. Its appeal therefore depends heavily on the journey itself.

The route also illustrates a broader Scandinavian travel proposition. Rail can combine with fjord cruises, walking, cycling and village stays, allowing visitors to build a multi-modal itinerary around landscapes rather than around a single attraction. The result is a more immersive form of sightseeing, particularly for international visitors who may have limited time.

For the industry, the million-passenger threshold also demonstrates the commercial potential of packaging transport as an attraction. The railway becomes part of the itinerary before the traveller even reaches the final destination.

France Shows The Scale Of Tourist Rail

France adds another important dimension because its tourist railway network has considerable depth. Industry federation UNECTO reported around 4 million passengers across French tourist railways in 2025, illustrating that heritage and scenic rail are far from marginal tourism products.

The Montenvers rack railway near Chamonix provides a particularly strong example. It carried 539,306 visitors in 2025, while the Mont-Blanc Tramway recorded more than 202,000 passengers. These figures show how rail can function as the gateway to a mountain attraction while also becoming part of the attraction itself.

The model extends beyond the Alps. France’s Train Jaune crosses the Pyrenees, while the Mont-Blanc Express provides a cross-border Alpine connection. Such routes give travellers access to landscapes that would otherwise require more complicated road journeys.

For visitors, the implication is practical. Tourist railways can often provide a more predictable mountain experience than driving through narrow roads or searching for limited parking. However, peak-season trains can also become attractions with their own capacity constraints, making advance planning increasingly important.

Italy Revives The Slow-Rail Proposition

Italy brings a different idea to the European mountain-rail story: heritage rail as regional development. The Cuneo–Ventimiglia line, known as the Ferrovia delle Meraviglie, links the Italian Riviera with the Roya Valley through the Maritime Alps.

In 2025, historic trains operated between Ventimiglia and Tende using restored Centoporte carriages dating from the 1930s and 1940s. The 96-kilometre route passes through the Roya Valley, tunnels, bridges and mountainous terrain before reaching the French border region.

The service was priced at €20 for a return journey for adults, with reduced fares for children. The railway also connected passengers with museums and cultural sites during scheduled stops.

The significance goes beyond nostalgia. Italy is positioning historic trains as vehicles for slow discovery and territorial regeneration. In 2026, FS Treni Turistici Italiani and Fondazione FS again placed the Ferrovia delle Meraviglie within a broader programme where the journey becomes part of the destination experience.

This approach can help smaller communities compete with headline destinations. Rather than building another large attraction, a region can monetise its existing railway, scenery, heritage and villages.

Slovenia Offers A Smaller Alpine Test

Slovenia demonstrates how the same trend can emerge within a much smaller tourism market. The country recorded 17.84 million overnight stays in 2025, with mountain resorts accounting for nearly 5.5 million, or 31% of the national total. Those mountain stays increased 6.6% year on year.

Bled, Kranjska Gora and Bohinj were the leading mountain destinations. Foreign visitors generated 85% of mountain-resort overnight stays, making international accessibility especially important for the region.

Bohinj provides a useful micro-example. The municipality recorded 314,599 arrivals and 838,727 overnight stays in 2024, with international visitors accounting for 78.3% of overnight stays. The average stay was 2.7 days.

These figures do not prove that rail caused tourism growth. They do, however, show why transport connections matter as Alpine destinations confront congestion and sustainability pressures. For Slovenia, the opportunity lies in linking rail, local buses, hiking and accommodation into one coherent visitor journey.

Slovakia Is The Sleeper Rail Story

Slovakia provides perhaps the most intriguing contrast with Switzerland. The High Tatras railway system is less associated with luxury travel, yet it performs an important tourism function by connecting mountain settlements and attractions.

The Tatra Electric Railway and rack railway serve places including Starý Smokovec, Štrbské Pleso and Tatranská Lomnica. Their role combines everyday mobility with access to hiking, skiing and sightseeing, creating an unusually direct connection between public transport and tourism.

The region has also experimented with heritage services and integrated visitor products. A 2025 ticketing pilot involving ZSSK included the Tatra Electric Railway and Cogwheel Railway within a nationwide mobile pay-as-you-go trial, showing how digital public transport can support tourist mobility.

That model matters because it challenges the assumption that mountain rail must be expensive or luxury-oriented. A modern regional network can provide much of the same landscape access while remaining embedded within everyday mobility.

Seven Countries, Seven Rail Models

The seven markets reveal that there is no single European blueprint for mountain railway tourism. Instead, railways are acquiring tourism value through different commercial and regional strategies.

The comparison also explains why passenger figures should never be treated as a simple league table. A million sightseeing journeys on one railway may have a completely different economic meaning from a million journeys on an integrated public transport network.

Why Travellers Should Watch This Shift

For travellers, the transformation creates more choices beyond conventional road-based sightseeing. A rail itinerary can reduce the need to hire a car, avoid mountain-road stress and turn otherwise unavoidable transfer time into part of the holiday.

There is also a stronger sustainability argument. Rail cannot automatically make a destination sustainable, especially when trains become overcrowded or encourage short, high-volume excursions. However, integrated public transport can help destinations manage visitor movement more efficiently than unrestricted private-car access.

The commercial opportunity is equally substantial. Hotels can build packages around railway journeys, restaurants can market station locations, and smaller communities can gain exposure through routes that connect famous gateways with lesser-known valleys.

The strongest destinations will therefore be those that treat the railway as part of a wider visitor economy. The train, station, hotel, walking route, cultural attraction and local transport network can work as one tourism chain.

What The Numbers Mean For Holiday Planning

The emerging pattern suggests travellers should evaluate mountain railways on more than scenery. Passenger demand, seasonality, connectivity and onward transport can determine whether a route works well for a particular trip.

Travellers should also distinguish between a railway that requires a dedicated tourist ticket and one covered by ordinary regional transport arrangements. That distinction can materially change the cost of a multi-day itinerary.

The Next Chapter Runs On Rails

The resurgence of mountain rail is ultimately less about nostalgia than about how Europe wants visitors to move through fragile landscapes. Switzerland demonstrates the premium model, Norway proves that the journey can become a headline attraction, while Austria shows how rail can sit inside a sophisticated year-round mountain economy.

Meanwhile, Italy, Slovenia and Slovakia reveal another possibility. Smaller or historic railways can connect communities, diversify tourism and reduce dependence on private vehicles without replicating the cost structure of Europe’s most famous panoramic trains. France, with its extensive tourist-rail network, shows that this market already operates at considerable scale.

The enduring opportunity is therefore clear. Europe’s mountain railways are evolving from infrastructure into experience platforms, and travellers stand to gain from that transformation. The next generation of mountain tourism may not simply ask where the train goes, but why the journey itself has become worth taking.