Where the Railway Became Electrified – Campocologno Train Station

The Albula and Bernina lines of the Rhaetian Railway are UNESCO World Heritage Sites. However, this does not mean that each station along the lines is widely known. The train station at Campocologno, for example, despite serving as a border station between Switzerland and Italy, may appear rather unassuming.

In earlier times, however, Campocologno was more prominent, acting as an Alpine hub of sorts for electricity production, with a long-distance transmission line stretching from there to Milan. Nearby, the power station – Europe's most powerful hydroelectric facility when it was commissioned in 1907 – still stands.

The railway and hydropower were closely linked in this period. A photograph from around 1910, preserved by the iStoria association, documents this connection. It features not only the former station building and a number of serious-looking men but also a first-generation Bernina Railway locomotive, already powered not by steam but by regionally produced electricity.