Montserrat Rack Railway
A dream come true
The easiest route to the heavens
Climb up Montserrat on one of the only two rack railways still in operation in Catalonia!
Five kilometres of exuberant nature
Inaugurated in 1892, the Montserrat rack railway is Catalonia’s most popular railway and one of only two of its kind still in operation. Its scenic route allows you to admire the mountain in all its splendour and is the easiest way of accessing Montserrat Abbey, home of the famous wooden statue of Our Lady of Montserrat known as ‘La Moreneta’, the patron saint of Catalonia.
The journey from Monistrol de Montserrat to Montserrat is only five kilometres, but making it on a rack railway train transforms it into a unique experience. The rack railway was the dream of Joaquim Carrera, an engineer who was so passionate about Montserrat and mountain trains typical of the Swiss Alps that in 1891 he convinced an entrepreneur to build a train similar to those he had seen in Switzerland to link the monastery to the recently-opened Monistrol de Montserrat station. The rack railway was in operation a year later and since then thousands of pilgrims, tourists and nature lovers have ridden it.
Along its journey the rack railway train crosses the river Llobregat and runs through the Àngel (Angel) and Apòstol (Apostle) tunnels before its stops at Plaça de la Creu, which is at the foot of the monastery and marks the start of the spiritual route on Catalonia’s most emblematic mountain. The current train was renovated in 2003.
