Eigerwand is a disused underground railway station in the municipality of Grindelwald in the

canton of Bern The canton of Bern, or Berne (; ; ; ), is one of the Canton of Switzerland, 26 cantons forming the Switzerland, Swiss Confederation. Its capital city, Bern, is also the ''de facto'' capital of Switzerland. The bear is the heraldic symbol of the c ...

Switzerland Switzerland, officially the Swiss Confederation, is a landlocked country located in west-central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the south, France to the west, Germany to the north, and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east. Switzerland ...

. It is on the

Jungfrau railway The Jungfrau Railway (, , JB) is a mountain rack railway in the Bernese Alps, Switzerland, connecting Kleine Scheidegg in the Bernese Oberland to the Jungfraujoch, across the Valais border. It is the highest railway in Switzerland and Europe, ru ...

, which runs to the

Jungfraujoch The Jungfraujoch (German language, German: lit. "maiden saddle") is a Saddle (landform), saddle connecting two major Four-thousander, 4000ers of the Bernese Alps: the Jungfrau and the Mönch. It lies at an elevation of above sea level and is dir ...

from

Kleine Scheidegg The Kleine Scheidegg () is a mountain pass at an elevation of , situated below and between the Eiger and Lauberhorn peaks in the Bernese Oberland region of Switzerland. The name means "minor watershed", as it only divides the two arms of the L ...

. The station is located just behind the north wall of the

Eiger The Eiger () is a mountain of the Bernese Alps, overlooking Grindelwald and Lauterbrunnen in the Bernese Oberland of Switzerland, just north of the main watershed and border with Valais. It is the easternmost peak of a ridge crest that extends ...

and its principal purpose was to allow passengers to observe the view through a series of windows carved into the rock face. Trains to Jungfraujoch used to stop at the station for a few minutes for this purpose, but those descending to Kleine Scheidegg did not stop. The only access to the station other than by train is a door in the sheer face of the mountain. This has, on occasion, been used to rescue mountaineers stranded on the mountain, most famously during the

1936 Eiger north face climbing disaster In July 1936, a team of four climbers died while attempting to ascend the north face of the Eiger mountain in Switzerland. Background After a deadly and unsuccessful German attempt in 1935, ten climbers from Austria and Germany travelled to th ...

. It features in this capacity in the 1975 film '' The Eiger Sanction''. It lies close to the Stollenloch, an exit and unofficial stop which is sometimes used by mountaineers to bypass the lower approach of the North Face. The station opened on 28 June 1903, with the extension of the Jungfraubahn from its previous temporary terminus at Rotstock station. After further construction, the line was extended to Eismeer station on 25 July 1905, and Eigerwand became an intermediate stop. The station closed in late 2016 following the introduction of new, faster

rolling stock The term rolling stock in the rail transport industry refers to railway vehicles, including both powered and unpowered vehicles: for example, locomotives, Railroad car#Freight cars, freight and Passenger railroad car, passenger cars (or coaches) ...

which allowed the service frequency on the line to be improved. Prior to its closure, the following passenger trains operated:

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* Railway stations in Switzerland opened in 1903 Railway stations in the canton of Bern Eiger Railway stations in Switzerland closed in 2016 {{Switzerland-railstation-stub

See also

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