The story
In 1879, the valley of the Linth river was connected to the Swiss railway network by the opening of the Weesen to Linthal line, but the side-valley of the Sernf river remained unserved. This impacted the local economy, and various proposals were brought forward to provide rail service to the Sernf valley. The eventual result was the Sernftal tramway, which opened on 7 August 1905.
The line was constructed to metre gauge (3 ft 3+3⁄8 in gauge) and largely ran immediately alongside the road, with some narrow street running sections through the villages. This resulted in a difficult to operate line, with a minimum curve radius of 39 m (128 ft) and a maximum gradient of 6.8%. It was electrified using direct current (first 750, then 800 V) generated from a hydro-electric power plant in Matt.
Because the line ran in the road the railway company was responsible for maintenance of the road surface as well as its own tracks.
and the line struggled financially with its operation requiring a subsidy from 1922. Closure of the railway and replacement with buses or trolleybuses was considered in 1939/1940, but the line remained opened until 1969. The line's official closure was on 24 May and the final special services ran on 31 May 1969. The operating company survived, changing its name to Autobetrieb Sernftal, and still operates the bus service bus services in the area under the name Sernftalbus.
From Wikipedia’s article on Sernftal tramway, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.3