BLM Mürrenbahn is truly one of the strange railroads of Switzerland. To understand exactly where it is, we must describe a little the surroundings:

Interlaken is a beautiful town between two picturesque lakes in central Switzerland and it´s also famous for its ski tourists. Many of the skiers stay overnight - and enjoy the night life - in Interlaken, but to get to their favourite slopes in the small villages high up, for example Mürren, they first in the morning pack their gear in the narrow gauge, partly cog wheel trains of BOB, Berner Oberlandbahn, which takes them in about an hour to Lauterbrunnen, a beautiful village at the bottom of a valley. From Lauterbrunnen, one can take either the WAB Wengernalpbahn cog wheel trains up to famous villages such as Wengen or over the mountain range, or on the other side try to get to Mürren. BLM Mürrenbahn operates firstly an aerial cablecar lifting people and their gear right up to Grütschalp, which is basically just one or two houses, literally hanging on a steep mountainside like on a shelf, where people switch from the cablecar to a narrow gauge train. This train is really in the middle of nowhere: it lies horizonally on a narrow rim, like a balcony, 1,5 km high, along the mountainside. The line is only about 4,3 km long and it is leading from the cablecar of Grütschalp to the beautiful mountain village of Mürren and its ski slopes. Needless to say there are no cars in Mürren. In 2024 the line was rebuilt and has now two tracks allowing traffic with two trains.

For the occasional visitor the first mystery is how on earth the Swiss have managed to get several normal sized EMU trains up there? The history has it that there used to be a cog wheel train instead of the present day cable car from Lauterbrunnen to Grütschalp and they managed to use somehow miraculously the first cog wheel train to lift the train wagons right up. Later when the funicular was already dismantled, railway wagons had to be moved through the forests on steep slopes to reach the Mürrenbahn railway on this shelf-like railway high up. It's also a good question how in the name of all the Gods have the Swiss managed to run over one million kilometres (sic!) on all three of the 1960s EMUs on a railroad which is only 4,3 km long !

This exotic piece of railroad history was opened to public service already 14.9.1891. Wheel gauge is 1 metre and as we are in Switzerland, the railroad is of course fully electrified - has been already from the beginning of the 1900s. The total length of the railroad is 4,3 km and it has one stop in the middle. The line is electrified with a very strange voltage of 550 V DC (!!). Nothing is standardised when it comes to Swiss trains.

The Swiss are truly persistent when it comes to railroads and mountains :-) But maybe that´s exactly why so many tourists want to come and see them.

BLM Mürrenbahn ordered three new two coaches long trains from Stadler. They were supposed to be delivered in 2019, but finally as a result of the Covid pandemic related problems the two first ones entered service only in 2024. At the same time the old trains from 1967 (pictured below) were taken down from the line and sold to Germany.
Picture of one of the new trains called "Eiger" from Mürren's new station 12.9.2024 by Juha Telimaa.

This old CFe 2/4 no. 11 from 1913 of the BLM Mürrenbahn was replaced in 1967 by two newer electric motor units. However, the old train is kept in top shape and used for "nostalgy trips" along this short mountain railway.
Photo from Grütschalp in May 1999 by Ilkka Siissalo.

The same old train as above, here on its way between Grütschalp and Mürren and with a nice view of the famous mountain Jungfrau in the background. This picture is from Roland Zumbühl from Picswiss. Roland Zumbühl is a retired teacher from Arlesheim, near Basel, who has published a lot of his pictures online. Thank you Roland ! This picture is published under the Creative Commons CC-BY SA 3.0 licence.. Picture has been published 30.8.2008.

The oldie motorwagon no.11 was still there in the summer of 2023 although it was not possible to take a good picture of it.
Picture from Grütschalp 11.7.2023 by Ilkka Siissalo.

This Be 4/4 no. 21 from 1967 has been used for by far more than 1 million kilometers on a railroad of 4,3 km total. Three units like this, numbers 21 to 23, from 1967 have managed to run most of the traffic since the late 1960s. In 2010 one more train, almost similar and dating back to 1966, was purchased from Aare Seeland Mobil and was managed to haul through the forests and along car-free paths up there.
Photo from Grütschalp station in December 1998 by Ilkka Siissalo.

Be 4/4 no. 23 is one of the three similar trains taken in use in 1967. Still in the summer of 2023 these three trains took care of all the traffic on the line.
Photo from Grütschalp station in 11.7.2023 by Ilkka Siissalo.

A view through the driver´s window of the BLM Mürrenbahn Be 4/4 on way from Grütschalp to Mürren. In some places the over 100 years old narrow track railroad runs on cliffsides where there is only a couple of meters space, with the mountain on the right and a free fall of about 500 m waiting on the left side of the track. No wonder the maximum allowed speed is a modest 30 km/h.
Photo from May 1999 by Ilkka Siissalo.

Another view through the driver´s window of the BLM Mürrenbahn Be 4/4 on way through three meters high snow from Mürren to Grütschalp. The early 1999 extreme snowfalls and avalanches cut the 4,3 km long railroad in at least two places, so extreme care is needed in driving. The speed is between 5 to 10 km/h.
Photo in May 1999 by Ilkka Siissalo.

One of the year 1967's trains no. 22 looks more or less like new in this picture taken by the Wikimedia user "Gestumbindli" who has kindly published this picture in the public domain for anyone to use. The picture is from the new station of the village of Mürren and it has been taken in 2010.

Mürrenbahn's train Be 4/4 no.31 had been bought by BLM used from AareSeeland mobil. In comparison with the numbers 21-23 this one had double doors, which meant that much bigger goods could be fitted in the train. Subsequently it spent much of its career at Mürrenbahn in cargo traffic, supplying the village of Mürren with food and materials and transporting waste away. In this picture the train nicknamed "Lisi" was only some 3 weeks away from its final sidetracking and scrapping. There was not enough space at Grütschalp to keep it while the new Stadler trains were arriving and nobody wanted to buy it. The other old trains no.21 to 23 were hauled down from the mountain shelf and were sold to Germany.
While this train was still at AareSeeland, it worked on the Niederbipp line. All these narrow gauge trains running via the village of Niederbipp were called by the locals "Bipperlisi", so it was natural that when this train came to Mürrenbahn people started to call it "Lisi". Lisi was cut to small pieces up there on the mountain at Grütschalp only some weeks after this photo was taken and the pieces were transported down using the large new cable car.
Picture from Grütschalp 5.10.2024 by Johannes Erra.

One of the year 1967's trains no. 22 on its way from Grütschalp towards Mürren near the only train stop in the middle of the line, Winteregg. In the background can be seen the carless village of Wengen, which can only be reached from the valley via the trains of Wengernalpbahn. Somewhere deep down in between lies the village of Lauterbrunnen where the Mürrenbahn connection starts from. This picture has been taken by David Gubler and it has been published 4.12.2013 at www.bahnbilder.ch under the Creative Commons CC-BY SA 3.0 licence.

The first part of the journey from Lauterbrunnen to Mürren used to be a funicular train, climbing almost straight up from Lauterbrunnen to Grütschalp. Then from Grütschalp to Mürren runs this exotic small BLM railway like horizonally on a balcony. But to the horror of the operating company and the village down below it was found out that the funicular track together with its upper station at Grütschalp was almost collapsing. The funicular's track had been sliding downhill for more than three metres already. All traffic on the funicular had to be immediately stopped. It was decided that it will be safer to replace the funicular part with a cable car so that the cable car's masts could be anchored at the safest positions along the line.
Picture of the old funicular is from Lauterbrunnen and it has been published by Wikimedia user "Los Hawlos" under the Creative Commons CC BY-SA 3.0 license.

This is the new cable car which has now replaced the old funicular pictured above.
Picture from close to Grütschalp 30.8.2008 by Roland Zumbühl. Published under the Creative Commons CC BY-SA 3.0 license.