A cable railway or Seilbahn is a usually very short strectch of railroad on a steep hillside where two identical coaches are tied at opposite ends of a cable. Moving the cable moves both coaches simultaneously. This type of "Funiculaires" are fairly common in all the Alpine countries.

Since there are so many of these small, steeply climbing private mountain railroad lines, it doesn´t make sense to build separate pages for all of the companies. They are in this archive shown all on this page no matter if they are technically cable railroads or freely moving cog wheeler trains.

This short cable railway called "Polybahn" connects the famous technical university ETHZ, Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich to the square aptly named "Central" down by the Limmat river valley at the very heart of Zürich. The funicular was built already in the 1800s, but has been recently thoroughly modernised.
Photo by Erik Hjelme 19 September 1995. (hjelme@datashopper.dk) Uploaded Nov 23, 1995

Niesenbahn is a small mountain train. It is not a "Seilbahn" but it works using cog wheel technology, with independent coaches. Niesenbahn is located in the mountain valley which leads from Thun and Interlaken south towards Lötschberg and Kandersteg, the Engstligental. It rises from Mülenen, a small village and station in the valley by the BLS Lötschberg line to the peak of Niessen, 2362 metres high.
Photo in Mülenen in June 1999 by Ilkka Siissalo
Uploaded June 16th, 2002

Another view of the Niesenbahn mountain train, very similar to the famous Pilatusbahn close to Luzern. The track starts from Mülenen by crossing a bridge over the river Engstlige; even there the track is climbing pretty steeply up.
Photo in Mülenen in June 1999 by Ilkka Siissalo
Uploaded June 16th, 2002