Rittner Bahn

The Rittner Bahn is a railway that no other railway reaches. Since 1967 not a metre of track has joined it to the rest of the network: you arrive by cable car, and every train it has acquired since has had to come up the mountain by road.

It was not built that way. When it opened on 13 August 1907, its trains left from Walther Square in the centre of Bolzano, ran through the streets to the edge of the city and then climbed 910 metres on a rack, pushed by electric locomotives: the first electric rack railway in Tyrol. At the top they went on by adhesion across the Ritten plateau to Klobenstein, carrying the townspeople of Bolzano to their Sommerfrische, the summer retreat in the cool air above the city. In 1966 a cable car replaced the rack, the street section was replaced by buses, and the climb was abandoned and its track lifted. The top of the line was all that was left.

It nearly went too. In the early 1980s a committee of local people fought to keep it, the track was renewed in 1984–85, and since 2009, when a bigger cable car nearly tripled the crowds, it has run every half hour. The railcars of 1907 and 1908 are still in the depot and still come out; the everyday trains are second-hand units from a Swiss interurban line, and their successors, retired trams from Heidelberg, arrived in 2026.

The journey begins in Bolzano, at the valley station of the Ritten cable car on Via Renon, a short walk from the main railway station. Gondolas leave every few minutes and climb 950 metres in about twelve minutes, up the slope the rack railway once climbed, to Oberbozen. The railway station is next door.

From Oberbozen a few trains a day run four minutes back to Maria Himmelfahrt, the halt in the woods where the rack locomotives were once uncoupled; most head the other way. The metre-gauge line runs entirely off the road, through mountain meadows and woods of larch, on wooden poles that still carry the overhead wire in their historic shape. It passes Wolfsgruben, for the lake, and climbs gently to Lichtenstern, at 1,250 metres the highest point, where the trains pass each other. To the right the view opens on the western Dolomites: the Latemar, the Rosengarten, the Schlern and the Geisler peaks. After Rappersbichl the line drops gently to Klobenstein, the main village of the Ritten, 18 minutes from Oberbozen. Four of the small halts are request stops, and every train carries a conductor, who sells tickets and passes on requests to stop.

The trains

The everyday trains are the Trogener: two-car units built in 1975–77 at Altenrhein for the St. Gallen–Trogen railway in Switzerland, bought in 2009 and in service here since 2010, now in dark red and grey. Before them came a 1958 tram from Esslingen in Germany, bought in 1981 and still kept in reserve. In spring 2026 four trams retired from Heidelberg arrived: three to take over from the Trogeners and give the line step-free boarding, one for spare parts.

The oldest cars are the line's own: railcars 2 and 12, delivered in 1907–08, and 105, the "Alioth", built in 1910 for the Dermulo–Mendel railway in the Val di Non and on the Ritten since 1937. All three are still listed by the tourist board as scheduled historic railcars, with wooden bodies and wooden benches.

The line runs every day, all year. Between Oberbozen and Klobenstein there is a train every half hour from about 10:00 to 18:30, and hourly in the early morning and evening; the last leaves Oberbozen at 23:00. A few trains each day run through to or from Maria Himmelfahrt. The trip takes 18 minutes from Oberbozen to Klobenstein and 22 from Maria Himmelfahrt. The first two trains each way run on working days only.

Oberbozen to Klobenstein

Klobenstein to Oberbozen

The cable car, and when it is shut

The Ritten cable car runs from Bolzano to Oberbozen every 4 minutes until 19:00 and every 4 to 12 minutes after that, from 6:30 (7:02 on Sundays and holidays) to 21:48, with single runs at 22:15 and 22:45. From 9 to 24 November 2026 it closes for maintenance: replacement buses run from Bolzano, and the train runs hourly instead of every half hour. A new timetable starts on 13 December 2026.

Times as of October 2026, from südtirolmobil's timetables for the Rittner Bahn and the cable car (opens in a new tab) (tables 160 and 161), valid from 14 December 2025 to 12 December 2026.

The railway is part of South Tyrol's public transport network, so its tickets work like a bus ticket: buy at the station machines or in the südtirolmobil app and validate before boarding, or buy a single from the conductor on the train. A single costs €5.50 and a return €8.50, valid the same day; with the cable car from Bolzano, the whole trip is €12.50 single or €20.50 return. Children under six travel free. Seats cannot be booked, and bicycles are not carried.

For a longer stay the Mobilcard covers the railway, the cable car and every bus and regional train in the province, from €22 for a day. Many hotels on the Ritten give guests a free Südtirol Guest Pass, which covers the same. Fares as of October 2026.

Interrail and Eurail do not cover this line. The Rittner Bahn is not among the Italian railways the pass is valid on; it does cover Trenitalia's regional trains and the EuroCity and Railjet trains over the Brenner to Bolzano.

South Tyrol's own passes do. The Mobilcard gives 1, 3 or 7 days of unlimited travel on the province's buses, regional trains, cable cars and this railway, from €22 for a day. Guests of many hotels and guesthouses get the Südtirol Guest Pass free for the length of their stay, and it covers the same.

For the railway alone, a pass is worth buying only if you will also ride the cable car and a bus or two that day: the train and cable car together cost €20.50 return.

Checked October 2026 against Interrail's table of railway companies (opens in a new tab) and südtirolmobil (opens in a new tab).

The Ritten is walking country, and the railway is how people get between the walks: most of what is worth seeing lies a short stroll from one of its stations, with the city of Bolzano at the foot of the cable car and the Rittner Horn a bus ride beyond Klobenstein.

Bolzano has the widest choice and puts the cable car a short walk away. To stay up on the plateau, Oberbozen is the hub of the line, and many places to stay there give guests the Südtirol Guest Pass.

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