The railway was built between 1928 and 1930 and opened in three stages. The first was the long centre section between Grainau and the Eibsee which went into operation on 19 February 1929. On 19 December 1929 it was followed by the long section between Garmisch and Grainau, including the important tourist connexion to the main railway network of the Deutsche Reichsbahn. On 8 July 1930 the last long section between the Eibsee and the – now closed – summit station of Schneefernerhaus was opened, including the final long Zugspitze Tunnel.
New summit section since 1987
In 1987 the route of the railway in the summit area was changed and the long "Rosi Tunnel" opened. The tunnel was named after the skier, Rosi Mittermaier, who was the tunnel patroness at the time. The tunnel branches from the 1930-built Zugspitze Tunnel about three-quarters of the way along it, and runs to the somewhat lower Zugspitzplatt plateau at. Here, below the Sonn-Alpin Restaurant is the new Glacier Station in the middle of the ski area. The overall length of the Zugspitze Railway was extended from to its current. For five years, both termini were worked in parallel, but since November 1992 the old route to the Schneefernerhausis is no longer routinely worked.
Route
The Zugspitze Railway starts in the quarter of Garmisch at a height of. Here the BZB runs its own terminal station which is operationally entirely separate from the adjacent standard gauge station of the Deutsche Bahn AG. Moreover, it is still just called Garmisch, whereas the DB station bears the double-barrelled name of Garmisch-Partenkirchen, reflecting the contentious merger, formally in 1935, of the two municipalities. For the first, as far as Grainau, the Zugspitze Railway runs as an adhesion line. Of this section, the first run parallel to the Ausserfern Railway, built in 1913. The mountain section begins in Grainau station, is equipped with a Riggenbach rack system, and is long. The railway climbs steeply uphill from Grainau, passes Eibsee station and finally arrives at the halt of Riffelriss. Immediately after the halt is the entrance to the Zugspitze Tunnel, which together with the Rosi Tunnel takes trains to the current terminus at Zugspitzplatt.
Technical
The Zugspitzbahn runs from Garmisch-Partenkirchen to Zugspitzplatt, a distance of 19.0 km. The track gauge is 1,000 mm and the electrification system is 1,500 V D.C. overhead line. The lower section from Garmisch to Eibsee is operated as an adhesion railway with rack assistance from Grainau to Eibsee. The section above Eibsee is operated as rack only using the Riggenbach system. Passengers travelling the whole line from Garmisch to Zugspitzplatt stay on the same train.
