Building a railway over and through high mountains is a engineering challange, and may call for unconventional solutions. In two places, the train runs in a zig-zag. That is, the train runs into a dead end, backs out from the dead end on another track up the hill, and into the next dead end, where it once more changes direction and on a third track to progress forward. Through this manœuvre the train gains 47 meters of altitude in very short distance.

On this picture we are on the third track on the zig-zag, and the below you see the other two tracks we have just passed over. On the page about the flamingo lakes, there is a picture of the zig-zag as seen from the road.

The train guides were incredibly proud over this construction, but it is not entirely unique. On Taiwan, I rode with a train that performed a similar twist. Except that the Taiwanese train only changed directions once, and thus continued up the mountain backwards for least half an hour until the next turning point!