Ritten Railway Birthday

Special ride with the historic narrow-gauge railway from the train station Oberbozen to Maria Himmelfahrt and back. Accompanied by the train experts who tell interesting facts about the history of the Ritten Railway, followed by a short guided tour (German/Italian) of the Remise in Oberbozen.

Meeting point: At 1.30 p.m. at the Oberbozen Tourist Office.
Price: € 10, € 5 kids (6-14 years).
Special ride only with reservation at the Tourist Office Ritten. Limited number of participants.

It was 13 August 1907 when the Ritten Railway, which ran from Waltherplatz in the centre of Bolzano directly up to the Ritten, was officially opened. The railway overcame almost 1,000 metres in altitude in the section between Bolzano and Maria Himmelfahrt with the help of a cogwheel drive, before continuing from Himmelfahrt to Oberbozen, Lichtenstern and Klobenstein.

The Rittner Bahn was a mountain railway based on the Swiss model; it was the time of the Belle Epoque, when the mountains were to be made accessible to wealthy tourists. Over the decades, however, the construction of this railway also proved to be a stroke of luck for the people of Renon itself. In 1966, the cogwheel railway was abandoned and a modern cable car was built from Bolzano to Soprabolzano. In May 2009, this first cable car was replaced by a modern circulating railway or Ritten cable car. The narrow-gauge railway, which is now the last of its kind in the whole of South Tyrol, now runs between Oberbozen and Klobenstein as the main line and a few times on the Maria Himmelfahrt branch line with historic and more modern railcars.