Kleine Scheidegg, Switzerland - The strangest questions can cross your mind sometimes, such as how do you wish someone "Good day!" in Japanese? That would have been nice to know as the carriage door closed and passengers looked for seats on the Jungfrau Railway, in the Bernese Oberland region of the Swiss Alps.

The small cogwheel railway, which starts in Kleine Scheidegg, has become a top attraction for tourists, many of whom are Japanese. They all want to ride up to the Jungfraujoch, a saddle between the Jungfrau and Moench peaks and site of Europe's highest railway station.

The railway now takes well over a half-million tourists from the foot of the Eiger Glacier, some 2,060 metres above sea level, to what is billed as the Top of Europe: an observation platform with a view of the Jungfrau, at 4,158 metres the region's highest mountain. Around 60 per cent of them are Asian, mostly from Japan. Many also come from South Korea, India, Taiwan and China.

The number of passengers keeps climbing. There were 702,000 in 2007, a new record. The Jungfrau Railway has ambitious plans and hopes to break the 1-million barrier soon.

Built between 1896 and 1912, the railway stretches 9.3 kilometres. Passengers receive a cardboard "nostalgia ticket," resembling the tickets issued 50 years ago, as a souvenir. The route starts in the open, then enters a long tunnel. The first stop is Eigergletscher, 2,320 metres above sea level. The route continues inside the mountain to the next station, Eigerwand, 2,850 metres above sea level.

Eigerwand is equipped with panorama windows blasted through the mountain, but on this particular day the inside of the glass panes were iced over. Several Japanese and Korean tourists posed for photographs next to the sign indicating the station and also beside the doors of the train, planning to show them to friends and relatives back home as proof of the ride up the most beautiful mountain on the famous Jungfrau Railway.

The train does not halt for long, and the next stop, Eismeer, is not far. There are panorama windows there, too. And once again, a gaggle of East Asians got out and took photographs.

The high point of the ride, literally and figuratively, is the next and last stop - Jungfraujoch, 3,454 metres above sea level. The complex of buildings there includes a station concourse, several restaurants with a total seating capacity of several hundred, an atmospheric research station, an Ice Palace, an observation terrace and Switzerland's highest-altitude post office.

The Ice Palace, carved out of glacier ice and decorated with ice sculptures, consists of cavern-like passages that widen into rooms and halls. It is easy to get lost, so the head of the Korean group carried a Swiss flag that she sometimes raised to keep her flock on course.

A lift takes tourists, at a speedy 6.3 metres per second, another 108 metres up to the Sphinx observation hall and terrace, the highest accessible point at the Top of Europe. There, you can gaze at the mountains through the windows or step outside if you are not afraid of the cold. The wind is bracing, to say the least, at such a high altitude.

Standing on the terrace, as snowflakes fall so quietly, gives you a special feeling. In a way it is mind-blowing. How do you say that in Japanese?