FestungsBahn

This guide to the FestungsBahn funicular in Salzburg opens with a strange fact: for sixty-seven years after it opened in 1892, the railway climbing this cliff ran without a steam or electric engine at all. It explains the water-tank trick that hauled the cars up and down the slope, a system Salzburgers nicknamed the Tröpferlbahn, the little drip line, and follows the ride into its later life carrying musicians and audiences up to the fortress above. Listen for the moment the cliff face gives way to strings tuning in the stone hall overhead.