The Jungfrau Railway (German: Jungfraubahn, JB) is an 1,000 mm (3 ft 3 3⁄8 in) gauge rack railway which runs 9 kilometres from Kleine Scheidegg to the highest railway station in Europe at Jungfraujoch (3,454 m). The railway runs almost entirely within a tunnel built into the Eiger and Mönch mountains and contains two stations in the middle of the tunnel, where passengers can disembark to observe the neighbouring mountains through windows built into the mountainside. The open-air section culminates at Eigergletscher (2,320 m), which makes it the second highest open-air railway in Switzerland. The line is electrified at 3-phase 1,125 volts 50 Hertz, and is one of four lines in the world using three-phase electric power.
At Kleine Scheidegg the JB connects with the Wengernalpbahn (WAB), which has two routes down the mountain, to Lauterbrunnen and Grindelwald, from where the Berner Oberland Bahn (BOB) connects to the Federal Railways at Interlaken.
The Eiger is a 3,970 metres (13,020 ft) mountain in the Bernese Alps in Switzerland. It is the easternmost peak of a ridge crest that extends across the Mönch to the Jungfrau at 4,158 m. The northern side of the mountain rises about 3,000 m (9,800 ft) above Grindelwald and other inhabited valleys of the Bernese Oberland, and the southern side faces the deeply glaciated region of the Jungfrau-Aletsch, covered by some of the largest glaciers in the Alps.
The first ascent of the Eiger was made by Swiss guides Christian Almer and Peter Bohren and Irishman Charles Barrington, who climbed the west flank on August 11, 1858. The north face, 1,800 m (5,900 ft) (German: Nordwand, "north wall"), was first climbed in 1938 by an Austrian-German expedition and is one of the six great north faces of the Alps. Since 1935, at least sixty-four climbers have died attempting the north face, earning it the German nickname Mordwand, literally "murder(ous) wall" - a pun on its correct title of Nordwand (North Wall).
From Kleine Scheidegg a railway tunnel runs inside the Eiger and two internal stations provide easy access to viewing-windows in the mountainside. This railway, the Jungfraubahn rack railway, terminates in the Jungfraujoch, between the Mönch and the Jungfrau, at the highest railway station in Europe.