Rack railway to Montserrat Benedictine Monastary (Spain)

A sea of cloud rolls in.

The Mountains at Montserrat in Spain is well known as the site of the Benedictine abbey, Santa Maria de Montserrat, which hosts the Virgin of Montserrat sanctuary and which is identified by some with the location of the Holy Grail in Arthurian myth.

The Abbey can be reached by road, by the Aeri de Montserrat cable car, or by the Montserrat Rack Railway. The lower stations of both the rack railway and the cable car can be reached from Barcelona's Plaça d'Espanya station. From the abbey, the Funicular de Sant Joan funicular railway goes up to the top of the mountain, where there are various abandoned hovels in the cliff faces that were previously the abodes of reclusive monks, whilst the Funicular de Santa Cova descends to a shrine. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montserrat_(mountain)

The Montserrat Rack Railway - Catalan: Cremallera de Montserrat, IPA: is a mountain railway line north of Barcelona in Catalonia, Spain. The line runs from Monistrol de Montserrat to the mountain-top monastery of Montserrat.

The line is 5 km (3.1 mi) long and has a rail gauge of 1,000 mm (3 ft 3 3⁄8 in). The first 1 km (0.6 mi) of the line, between Monistrol and the only intermediate station at Monistrol Vila, is operated by conventional adhesion. The remainder of the line is operated as a rack railway using the Abt system, overcoming a height difference of 550 m (1,804 ft) with a maximum gradient of 15.6%. The line is electrified with an overhead supply at 1500 V DC.
The line is operated by the Ferrocarrils de la Generalitat de Catalunya (FGC).[1]

While the pics are my originals (Oct, 2012) the detailed information is coutesy of Wikipedia.