Commencing at the extreme west, we find the Col di Tenda, an easy pass for three-fourths of its ascent, when the mountain abruptly assumes a cone-like shape, and in a space of some two miles and a-half, rises on one side 1,200 feet. The descent on the other is of nearly equal length, and is nearly equally precipitous. Next comes Mont Genevre, the lowest of the Alpine passes that verge upon the Mediterranean. It is but a short giant’s step from Mont Genevre to the Mont Cenis. Next after, comes the Little St. Bernard, perhaps the easiest of all the passes over the Alps that connect important places together, for the construction of a carriage roadway. Napoleon, however, did not view it in this light, his great roads, being the Mont Cenis and the Simplon. Before we reach this last-named pass, we have that of the Great St. Bernard, one of the loftiest in the whole range, being in immediate proximity to the three highest mountains in Europe, Mont Blanc, 15,732 feet above the level of the sea, Mont Rosa, 15,130 feet, and Mont Cezvin, 14,835 feet.[3] It was by the Great St. Bernard that Napoleon crossed with an army from Switzerland into Italy, in the winter of 1800, and, by a fall from his mule, narrowly escaped being hurled from the precipice of St. Pierre into the abyss beneath it.
Next after the Simplon comes the St. Gothard, and then the Lukmanier, although this last can hardly be called a carriage roadway pass. Further east is the Bernardino. The easternmost pass between Switzerland and Italy, is the Splugen. There are as many as twenty passes available for mules and pedestrians between the Splugen and the next carriage road across the Alps, but they are only to be traversed by the knapsack tourist, who combines within himself vigorous health, activity, and endurance.
The Stelvio, the highest carriage road in Europe, 9,272 feet at its summit above the level of the sea, is, at that point, nearly 400 feet higher than the line of perpetual snow. It was constructed by the Austrians to give them direct access from Austria proper to Lombardy. The object in making it was political and military, not commercial; and now that not only Lombardy, but Venetia have become Italian, it is probable that a road, which in magnificence of conception and in grandeur of construction, exceeds even the Simplon, and which could only be maintained at great annual cost, will fall into decay.[4] For all the practical purposes of commerce it is useless, as within a short distance from it is the Brenner, the oldest, and at the same time the lowest carriage road across any of the Alpine passes. It has, in fact, been for centuries the trackway that has connected eastern and southern Germany with Lombardy and Venetia. It likewise can lay claim to the distinction of being the first pass that was made fit for the transport of carriages and of other vehicles, for it was certainly available for them, and was a good carriage road in the early part of the eighteenth century. It was just one hundred years later, that is in 1809, that those deeds of daring and devotion were achieved in the defiles of the Brenner, which have rendered undying the name and fame of Andreas Hofer.
With all Austria’s arrierreism in politics, she is in the foremost rank of continental nations, as regards the world’s modern civiliser, the Railway. She was next after Belgium in determining upon their construction, and although Prussia anticipated her as regards actual opening, railway works have been accomplished within the Austrian dominions, the like of which cannot be seen within those of her great rival, no matter whether these dominions belong to her de jure divino, or by that of conquest.
To Austria, undoubtedly, belongs the honour of having constructed the first, which until the 18th of August, 1867, was the only iron road traversed by the locomotive through an Alpine pass. At a heavy expense it is true, for the cost of the double line over the Sœmmering was at the rate of £98,000 an English mile. The great line of railway which connects Vienna with its sea port Trieste, now more important and valuable to Austria than ever, is 362 miles long; and at Glognitz, exactly forty-seven miles from Vienna, the pass commences. Although the actual distance from one foot of the pass to the other is not more than sixteen miles, the length of the railway, owing to the numerous twists and zig-zags it was necessary to make to overcome the elevation with gradients that the engine could climb up, is twenty-six miles. Yet, in this short distance, there are no less than twelve tunnels and eleven vaulted galleries, the aggregate length of which is 14,867 feet, or nearly three miles. The longest tunnel—4,695 feet—is at the summit, which is 2,893 feet above the level of the sea. The gradients vary from 1 in 40 for two miles and a-half to 1 in 54 for three miles and a-half. The average gradient is 1 in 47 on the north side, and 1 in 50 on the south. The foot of the mountain is 1,562 feet above the sea. The elevation to overcome was, therefore, only an average of 112 feet to the mile; nevertheless the difficulties in working the traffic have been very great. It was a considerable time before the present form of engine was adopted by M. Engerth, the locomotive engineer of the line. Its total heating surface is 1,660 square feet, its total weight, when filled with water and loaded with fuel, is fifty-five tons and a-half. This unfortunately is a weight most destructive both to rail and to roadway. The cost per train mile run averages 6s. 2d. the English mile down the pass as well as up it, whilst the average cost on the ordinary portions of the line is under 3s. per English mile. The time allowed for passenger trains is one hour and fifty minutes, being an average of fourteen miles an hour; for goods trains, two hours thirty minutes, or at the average rate of about ten miles an hour.
There was until just recently, a race running between the engineers at the Brenner and at the Mont Cenis, and it was, until the beginning of August, 1867, uncertain which of them would have the honour of being the second railway upon which the locomotive had crossed the Alps. But the Brenner has won by a length of eight days. The two lines differ in several respects, both as regard construction and working. The Brenner does not take a portion of the existing road for its road-bed. This is formed in the ordinary mode of construction; the company has made its own bridges, culverts, and viaducts, its own embankments and cuttings, its own tunnels and galleries, and in this way it has succeeded in constructing a railway of much less elevation at its summit than the adjacent carriage roadway. It has done so, however, at great cost, but it is anticipated that the saving in working charges will more than compensate for the additional outlay which this species, as it were, of independent construction has rendered unavoidable. The line will be worked on the ordinary system, that is, with engines and other rolling stock similar to those on the plain, with the exception that the engines must and will be of great additional weight, to give them the power and adhesion required to overcome the very severe gradients they will have to contend against. “The opening of the Brenner Railway,” says the Times, “places not only Austria, but Bavaria and all Southern Germany, almost in contact with Lombardy, Venetia, and all Northern Italy. It recovers all the importance that the Brenner Pass possessed from the remotest Roman and Germanic ages, as the most direct and easy route across the main Alpine chain, as the natural highway from the Valley of the Inn, to that of the Adige, and which constituted it the key to the strong position of the March of Verona, which the Germans, from its erection into an imperial fief, under Otho I, in the 10th century, denominated ‘the Gate of Italy.’”[5]
