Chemin de fer du Montenvers
railway line in France
The Montenvers Railway or Chemin de fer du Montenvers (French pronunciation: [ʃəmɛ̃ d(ə) fɛʁ dy mɔ̃tɑ̃vɛʁ]) is an alpine rack railway line in the Haute-Savoie department of France. It runs from Chamonix-Montenvers station in the valley in Chamonix (providing a connection with the SNCF service at Chamonix-Mont-Blanc station nearby) to Montenvers-Mer de Glace station near the Mer de Glace, at an altitude of 1,913 m (6,276 ft). Opened in 1909, it was electrified in 1954.
Overview
The line is 5.1 km (3.2 mi) long and has a track gauge of 1,000 mm (3 ft 3+3⁄8 in). It is a rack and adhesion railway, using the Strub rack system to overcome a height difference of 871 m (2,858 ft). Except for the terminal stations, which are operated in adhesion mode, the line has a gradient varying from 11% to 22%.
The line is operated by the Compagnie du Mont-Blanc which also manages the Mont Blanc Tramway and many ski lifts in the Mont Blanc region. The first section of the line as far as Caillet opened in 1908 and the line was completed in 1909.
The trains originally were drawn by steam locomotives built by SLM who supplied six 2-4-2T locomotives between 1908 and 1923. By 1953 the line was electrified, using an overhead line at 11 kV AC and 50 Hz, and service is provided by six electric railcars and trailers and three diesel locomotives, all from SLM. Trains run at 14 to 20 km/h (9 to 12 mph) and take 20 minutes for the journey.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Chemin de fer du Montenvers” is railway line in France. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Chemin, Montenvers and railway, not as a finished interpretation.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 3, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1069340. VIAF identifies the subject as 147557854. Authority coordinates are 45.923, 6.875. 1 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1909, 1954, 1908 and 1923.
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This entry incorporates text from “Chemin de fer du Montenvers” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.