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The Pilatus Railway (German: Pilatusbahn) located in Switzerland is the steepest rack railway in the world, with a maximum gradient of 48% and an average gradient of 35%. Alpnachstad is the lower terminus where it connects with regular boat services on Lake Alpnach and the Brünig railway’s trains to Lucerne and Interlaken. The upper terminus near the Esel summit of Pilatus is at an elevation of 2,073 m (6,801 ft) Eduard Locher proposed a railway with the maximum grade of 48%, conventional rack systems in use at the time were not thought capable of coping with such gradients owing to the risk of the cog wheel jumping out of the teeth on the rack rail resulting in the loss of both the ability to drive or brake the train. To overcome this problem Locher devised a system where the rack was placed horizontally between the tracks with the teeth cut on both outside edges facing away from each other, two flanged cogwheels mounted on vertical shafts underneath the train engaged with the rack rail and flanges
