Thusis

Thusis (Italian: Tosana, Romansh: Tusàn) is a municipality in the district of Hinterrhein in the Swiss canton of Graubünden.

History

Thusis is first mentioned in 1156 as Tosana.

Geography

Thusis has an area, as of 2006, of 6.8 km² (2.6 sq mi). Of this area, 18% is used for agricultural purposes, while 58.2% is forested. Of the rest of the land, 15.2% is settled (buildings or roads) and the remainder (8.6%) is non-productive (rivers, glaciers or mountains). The municipality is the capital of the Thusis sub-district, of the Hinterrhein district. It is the center of the Hinterrhein valley and is located at the confluence of the Hinterrhein and Nolla rivers. Thusis is also at the end of the Viamala canyon. It consists of the village of Thusis and, since 1875, includes Übernolla.

Demographics

Thusis has a population (as of 31 December 2014) of 2,994.As of 2008, 23.6% of the population was made up of foreign nationals. Over the last 10 years the population has grown at a rate of 0.7%.

St. Moritz

St. Moritz (German: Sankt Moritz; French: Saint-Moritz; Romansh:  San Murezzan ; Italian: San Maurizio) is a resort town in the Engadine valley in Switzerland. It is a municipality in the district of Maloja in the Swiss canton of Graubünden. The highest summit in the Eastern Alps, the Piz Bernina, lies a few kilometres south of the town. St. Moritz hosted the Winter Olympics in 1928 and 1948. It is a popular destination of the upper class and international jet set, as well as one of the most expensive ski resorts in the world.

History

Votive offerings, swords, and needles from the Bronze Age found at the base of the springs in St. Moritz indicate that the Celts had already discovered them.

St. Moritz is first mentioned around 1137-39 as ad sanctum Mauricium. The town was named after Saint Maurice, an early Christian saint from southern Egypt said to have been martyred in 3rd century Roman Switzerland while serving as leader of the Theban Legion.

Pilgrims traveled to Saint Mauritius often to the church of the springs, where they drank from the blessed, bubbling waters of the Mauritius springs in the hopes of being healed. In 1519, the Medici pope, Leo X, promised full absolution to anyone making a pilgrimage to the church of the springs. In the 16th century, the first scientific treatises about the St. Moritz mineral springs were written. In 1535, Paracelsus, the great practitioner of nature cures, spent some time in St. Moritz.

Train simulator

A train simulator (also railroad simulator or railway simulator) is a computer based simulation of rail transport operations. They are generally large complicated software packages modeling a 3D virtual reality world, with 'play mode' software which lets the user interact by stepping inside the virtual world. Some, like the first Microsoft Train Simulator are written and modeled for the user mainly interested in driving.

Industrial train simulations

Like flight simulators, train simulators have been produced for railway training purposes. Driver simulators include those produced by:

Albula Railway

The Albula Railway (German: Albulabahn; Italian: Ferrovia dell'Albula) is a single track metre gauge railway line forming part of the so-called core network of the Rhaetian Railway (RhB), in the Canton of Graubünden, Switzerland. It links Thusis on the Hinterrhein (697 m (2,287 ft) above sea level) with the spa resort of St. Moritz in Engadine (1,774 m (5,820 ft) above sea level).

Construction of the Albula Railway was begun in September 1898, the opening took place on 1 July 1903, and the extension to St. Moritz commenced operations on 10 July 1904. With its 55 bridges and 39 tunnels, the 61.67-kilometre long (38.32 mi) line is one of the most spectacular narrow gauge railways in the world.

On 7 July 2008, the Albula Railway and the Bernina Railway, which also forms part of the RhB, were jointly recorded in the list of UNESCO World Heritage Sites, under the name Rhaetian Railway in the Albula / Bernina Landscapes.

The best known trains operating on the Albula Railway are the Glacier Express and the Bernina Express.