Dolderbahn

Dolderbahn is a rack railway in Zürich, Switzerland, running from Römerhof in the Hottingen district to the Dolder area on the slopes of the Adlisberg. The railway opened on 13 July 1895 as a funicular, originally terminating beside the Waldhaus Dolder and providing access from the expanding city to the hotels and recreational facilities developing on the hillside. When the original concession expired, the funicular was replaced by a rack railway and extended farther uphill to the Dolder Grand, with the new line opening in 1973. The present route is 1.3 kilometres long, climbs approximately 162 metres and serves four stations: Römerhof, Titlisstrasse, Waldhaus Dolder and Dolder. The line was comprehensively renovated in 2004, while the two distinctive railcars introduced with the rack railway in 1973 remained in service for more than fifty years before being replaced by new vehicles in 2024. Dolderbahn is operated by Verkehrsbetriebe Zürich and remains an unusual example of a steep rack railway functioning as part of the public transport network within a major city.

Dolderbahn appears in Phenomena (1985). Dario Argento filmed extensively in and around Zürich for the supernatural horror film, using the railway during Jennifer Corvino’s journey to visit entomologist Professor John McGregor. The sequence includes the train travelling along the wooded hillside and passing through the upper section of the route, with Waldhaus Dolder station visible on screen. The red-and-cream railcar seen in the film was one of the vehicles introduced when Dolderbahn was converted from a funicular to a rack railway in 1973.

In Phenomena (1985), Jennifer Corvino travels on Dolderbahn while making her way to the home of Professor John McGregor, the wheelchair-using entomologist who becomes an important ally in her investigation of a series of murders. The journey is filmed on the upper part of the line between Titlisstrasse and Dolder, with the train seen moving through the wooded slopes of the Adlisberg and stopping at Waldhaus Dolder. The sequence helps establish the unusual Swiss setting of the film, which combines real locations around Zürich and the Alps into a deliberately dreamlike and geographically inconsistent landscape. McGregor’s house appears to lie somewhere beyond the railway in the film, although the house itself was actually filmed in Rome. Dolderbahn therefore acts as the geographical link between Jennifer’s Zürich surroundings and a location hundreds of kilometres away in reality, typical of the way Argento combines Swiss and Italian locations throughout the film.

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