Merkurbergbahn

The Merkurbergbahn (also Merkurbahn) is a funicular railway in Baden-Baden. It carries passengers up the Merkur, Baden-Baden’s local mountain, in 4 minutes, and it has made the summit with its observation tower a popular destination for a day out. At 1,192 metres long and with a maximum gradient of 54%, the Merkurbergbahn is one of the longest and steepest funiculars in Germany.

Using the railway

The Merkurbergbahn is open daily from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m., and by arrangement. It runs without a driver, and a car departs on request or automatically. Tickets are sold at the kiosk in the valley station and at the ticket machines in both the upper and the valley station. A one-way ticket costs €6.00 for adults and €3.50 for children, a combined up-and-down ticket €8.50 and €4.50.^[1] Children under 6 travel free when accompanied by a family member, and family tickets and other fares are available as well. Since the rebuilding of the valley and upper stations, both offer step-free access. Small dogs travel free in a closed carrier, while larger dogs pay the child’s fare.

Drivers should enter Markgrafenstraße in Baden-Baden into their navigation system. The valley station sits at the eastern end of that street, and the way there is well signposted in any case. There is ample parking at the valley station. Buses on lines 204 and 205 are the alternative, and a combined ticket covering both the bus and the Merkurbergbahn is worth having.

The ride is at its finest in April and May, when the large rhododendron bushes along the track are in bloom. In winter the forest paths around the Merkur turn into a toboggan run, and you can sledge back down into the valley.^[2]

Once Cyclone Lothar had felled numerous trees on the Merkur summit, launch sites for paragliders could be laid out there. The Merkurbahn carries the pilots and their equipment comfortably to the launch site, and they buy a pilot’s ticket for the trip. The landing field lies near the valley station. The paragliders’ webcam^[3] lets you check conditions on the Merkur before setting out.

History

The Merkur summit as a hiking destination

Hikers had been making for the Merkur for a long time. The strenuous climb, however, kept many people from enjoying the view. In 1811 Alois Schreiber wrote that the Mercurius was “arduous to climb” and advised his reader against a visit.^[4] Johann Ludwig Klüber, by contrast, gave the Merkur a whole chapter in 1810, pointed to the Roman votive stone found there and praised the view.^[5] The first observation tower went up on the Merkur in 1837, and the mountain grew more attractive still as a destination.

First plans for a Merkurbergbahn

Baden-Baden was a major international spa town in the 19th century and competed fiercely with the other spa towns and fashionable resorts of Europe, so it had every interest in offering its guests the finest and most modern attractions. When the ban on gambling houses took effect in 1872, the town lost its main attraction and its most important source of income in the casino. New ideas presumably found a ready audience in those years.

The Dutchman van Baalen first proposed a railway up the Merkur in 1873 and opened talks with a Swiss mountain-railway company. In 1874 he published a brochure titled “Projekt eines Eisenbahn-Bau-Unternehmens auf den Merkur” (Project for a railway construction enterprise up the Merkur). In 1875 van Baalen laid the Swiss company’s plans before the town council. They provided for a railway line 3,900 metres long, beginning at Sophienstraße and running via Ebersteinburg to the Merkur summit. A steam railway was to operate on it. On the summit he planned a climatic-health-resort hotel. In 1876 van Baalen still won the approval of the grand-ducal government in Karlsruhe and of the citizens’ committee in Baden-Baden, but the project then petered out. Presumably no financing could be found for the construction. Van Baalen had sacrificed almost his entire fortune to the effort. Other towns thus got there first. The Malbergbahn in Ems opened in 1887 and the Nerobergbahn in Wiesbaden in 1888.^[6] Karlsruhe, too, had been running a mountain railway on the Turmberg in Durlach since 1888.

Planning and construction of the funicular

Some 36 years passed before the idea of a railway up the Merkur became reality. It had lodged itself in the minds of Baden-Baden’s residents ever since van Baalen’s plans, and the planning of the Baden-Baden tramway brought it back. On 25 April 1907 a certain R. Holzapfel submitted a report to the town of Baden-Baden recommending what later became the route of the tram line to the Merkur and that of the mountain railway. In his view the tram line was the essential precondition for the mountain railway. The tram’s electricity could power the funicular as well, and only that would make profitable operation possible. On 16 December 1910 the citizens’ committee approved the tram line from Leopoldsplatz to the Merkurwald, and in June 1911 a loan of 451,000 marks, which cleared the way for construction of the Merkurbergbahn. Ground was broken for the mountain railway in May 1912. Fifteen months later the Merkurbergbahn was finished. The ceremonial opening followed on 16 August 1913.

Operation from 1913 to 1967

The Merkurbergbahn proved very popular, and its revenue covered the running costs. Between 1913 and 1967 it carried 5.6 million passengers. During the Second World War only soldiers used the railway. Troops stationed on the Merkur summit were responsible for aircraft observation. An air raid on the summit failed. French artillery shelled the Merkur summit in April 1945 and damaged the engine room, the hotel and the tower. In 1955 the first signs of age appeared on the track and bridges. Renovation work in the winter months from 1956 to 1959 bought time. By 1959 it was already clear that further renovations would be needed. The cars were given a general overhaul too. Replacing them would really have been necessary, but no funds were available for that.

From closure in 1967 to reopening in 1979

The financial situation kept deteriorating up to 1967. When a further 2 million marks of investment became necessary, the town council resolved to cease operations on 1 November 1967. In the years that followed, the Merkurbahn and the Merkur summit lay abandoned. Many Baden-Baden residents campaigned to reopen the railway, and more than one spa guest asked what had become of the attraction.

On 4 December 1974 the town council received a concept for reactivating the Merkurbergbahn and the Merkur summit. It proposed a gondola lift on the alignment of the former Merkurbergbahn, but that plan would have required extensive rebuilding and was dropped again. A change of plan followed in June 1975. The Merkurbergbahn was to be reactivated using the existing installations as far as possible, and then run with as little maintenance and staff as possible. The town council adopted the new concept on 14 September 1977. On 5 October 1977 the firm Roll, Frankfurt/Bern, was commissioned as general contractor to renew the railway installation. After 18 months of work the railway reopened on 27 April 1979.

Operation from 1979 to today

Since the reopening the Merkurbergbahn has run considerably faster and without a driver. The summit hosted a New Year’s Eve event for the first time in 1997. It went down well and was repeated. Other new events followed, such as the Easter egg hunt on the Merkur and St Nicholas celebrations. The Gleitschirmverein Baden e.V. has had its own flying site on the Merkur since 2002, and more and more paragliders take the railway to reach the summit. In January 2002 the cars were overhauled at the works in Switzerland and redesigned at the same time. They went back to the Swiss works for another overhaul in 2011. Stricter safety requirements mean the procedure will be repeated every 10 years in future. Further checks take place regularly in Baden-Baden.

In July 2018 the public was called upon to vote on the future design of the Merkurbergbahn cars. Three designs were on offer: a historic one with a wooden look, a classic one keeping the current shape, and a modern one with large panoramic windows. The modernisation was to be carried out within the following two years.

In 2019 and 2020 the entire technical installation of the Merkurbergbahn was renewed. Modern, larger cars in a historic look replaced the old ones. The approaches at the valley and upper stations were rebuilt for step-free access and new ticket machines were installed. The valley and upper stations themselves gained a bright, modern look. The Merkurbergbahn has been running again since 4 June 2020.

Facts and technology

The Merkurbergbahn is a funicular railway with a track gauge of 1 m. From the valley station at 287 m above sea level to the upper station at 657 m above sea level, it climbs 370 m of height difference and gradients of 23% to 54%. The line is 1,192 m long. A wire rope firmly connects the two cars and runs over a sheave in the upper station. Because the cars weigh roughly the same, little energy is needed to move them. The descending car hauls the ascending one up. A 125 kW/170 hp motor in the upper station supplies the additional power required. The mostly single-track line has a short double-track section with an Abt switch at its midpoint, where the cars pass one another. Each car has 18 seats and 12 standing places. Depending on demand, passengers can call the car themselves as they would a lift, or it runs to a fixed timetable. The journey takes 4 minutes. The railway’s speed can be adjusted to passenger numbers, up to a maximum of 6 m/s.

Sources

• 1913 bis 2003 Merkurbergbahn Baden-Baden published by the Stadtwerke Baden-Baden, 2003 edition, Rendezvous Verlag, ISBN 3-936881-02-2

References:

1. ↑ Tickets and opening hours on stadtwerke-baden-baden.de (retrieved 4 July 2026) (Archived)
2. ↑ Tobogganing on the Merkur recommended on kvv.de (retrieved 28 December 2013)
3. ↑ Merkur webcam of the Gleitschirmverein Baden e.V.
4. ↑ Baaden in der Marggraffschaft mit seinen Bädern by Alois Wilhelm Schreiber, p. 140 (online)
5. ↑ Beschreibung von Baden bei Rastatt und seiner Umgebung by Johann Ludwig Klüber 1810 Cotta’sche Buchhandlung Tübingen pp. 91–95 (online)
6. ↑ Ulrich Coenen Von Aquae bis Baden-Baden - die Baugeschichte der Stadt und ihr Beitrag zur Entwicklung der Kurarchitektur Aachen, Mainz 2008, ISBN 3-8107-0023-1 p. 551