Wengen and rail passes help!

All depends on what you want to see and do. There is a parking garage at Lauterbrunnen station where you get the train to Wengen. Put together a wish list of what you want to do, then you can price it out and get a better idea of how to proceed.

You can do the whole trip from Bauen to Wengen to the Jungfraujoch via rail, but it would be a long day. It's about 6 hours each way plus the time you spend visiting Wengen and the J.

GoogleMaps estimates the drive time at about 2 hours each way. You could drive as far as Lauterbrunnen, park your car there, then take the funicular train up to Wengen. From there you could catch the Jungfraubahn to the summit.

Get an early start since even on a nice day the clouds at the summit start rolling in around noon. Plus, early trips get a discount.

Absent a major change since my last trip there, the connection between Lauterbrunnen and Wengen is a train not a funicular.

Yeah, its technical, but it is a cogwheel train.

carol,

The quickest solution would be to drive to Lauterbrunnen and take the train from there to Wengen and the Jungfraujoch. I don't remember what the rates are in the car park there. Once you've parked, walk over to the rail station.

You'll first use the Wengernalpbahn cogwheel train for the trip from Lauterbrunnen to Wengen and then Kleine Scheidegg. After that you'll change to the Jungfraubahn for the trip to the top. It's highly advisable to check the weather before making that trip (there are webcams), as if it's socked in at the top you won't see much (although there are indoor displays).

"Economical" and "Switzerland" don't often fit well in the same sentence. There are a variety of Passes available, and you'll have to do the number crunching to determine which one will be most cost effective for the trips you'll be taking. If you're only going to Wengen and the Jungfraujoch, you could look at the Half Fare Card. The Jungfrau Regional Pass would probably not be appropriate for a day trip. This website may provide some answers - https://www.ricksteves.com/travel-tips/transportation/trains/switzerland-rail-passes

Given your ages, one other point to mention is that the Jungfraujoch is at 12,000+ feet, so if any of your group have issues related to altitude, that's something to consider. I'm in the same age group and didn't have any problems at the Jungfraujoch, although I found that things like climbing stairs were a real effort.