Tiefenbach halting point, Switzerland

Geschichte

Tiefenbach halting point, sometimes described as Tiefenbach station, or Tiefenbach railway station, is a metre gauge railway passenger facility, on the eastern side of the Furka Pass, in the Canton of Uri, Switzerland.In the Swiss German dialect, the expression Haltestelle normally refers to a railway facility without points or switches, where scheduled trains are allowed to stop, depart or terminate. Tiefenbach is not strictly a facility of that kind, because it is actually a crossing loop, with a point or switch at each end. Nevertheless, the word Haltestelle is the expression most often used to describe it, perhaps because for such a rudimentary facility, Haltestelle seems more appropriate than Bahnhof.Between 1926 and 1981, Tiefenbach formed part of the Furka Oberalp Bahn (FO). The portion of the FO on which it is located was then replaced by the Furka Base Tunnel in 1982. Since being reopened in 1992, Tiefenbach has been owned and operated by a heritage railway, the Furka Cogwheel Steam Railway (Dampfbahn Furka-Bergstrecke) (DFB).History and descriptionTiefenbach was first opened in 1926. Nominally, it serves the village of Tiefenbach UR, which consists essentially of the Hotel Tiefenbach and some outbuildings. However, the village is located on the Furka Pass road, about higher in altitude than the railway halting point. The back of the Tiefenbach station building is built into the side of the mountain, to give the building some protection from the annual avalanches. For that reason, only the façade of the station building is visible.