Known as “the last great problem of the Alps”, it drew climbers from across Europe to camp in the meadows below the face, plotting a route up the 1,800-metre wall of rock. But it was the imposing North Face that would become the iconic mountaineering challenge of the early decades of the 20th century. The Eiger was first climbed in 1858 by the Swiss mountain guides Christian Almer and Peter Bohren with their Irish client Charles Barrington. But it would soon become a place that would go down in the annals of mountaineering history, linking forever the railway on one side of the wall and what was happening out there on the open rock face. When Eigerwand station and its viewing balconies was opened, the Stollenloch might have been forgotten to all but those with an interest in railway history and railway construction.

It was used to remove stone and earth as construction workers tunnelled their way up through the mountain towards the Jungfraujoch. The Stollenloch was created during the construction of the railway, which began in 1896. But do you know the story of the Stollenloch, not far from Eigerwand station, where another hole opens out from the railway tunnel onto the rock face via a simple wooden door? And you might even know that until 2016 the Jungfraubahn trains stopped at a station called Eigerwand, behind the North Face of the mountain, with observation windows offering the type of view normally only available to the bravest of climbers.

You’ll know that it runs up to Europe’s highest railway station at the saddle between the Jungfrau and the Mönch, two of the great mountains in the Bernese Alps, and that to get there it tunnels up through the Mönch and a third famous peak – the Eiger. If you have made it here to the Europe by Rail website you’ve probably already heard of the Jungfraubahn.

Brave writer the wand