Southern_Railway_(Austria)

Southern Railway (Austria)

Southern Railway (Austria)

Railway in Austria

The Southern Railway (German: Südbahn) is a railway in Austria that runs from Vienna to Graz and the border with Slovenia at Spielfeld via Semmering and Bruck an der Mur. Along with the Spielfeld-Straß–Trieste railway (lying largely in Slovenia), it forms part of the Austrian Southern Railway that connected Vienna with Trieste, the main seaport of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, via Ljubljana. A main obstacle in its construction was getting over the Semmering Pass over the Northern Limestone Alps. The twin-track, electrified section that runs through the current territory of Austria is owned and operated by Austrian Federal Railways (ÖBB) and is one of the major lines in the country.

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History

Südbahn train near Baden, 1847
Südbahn poster, 1898
Share of the Südbahn-Gesellschaft, issued May 1883
Wien Südbahnhof, built in 1875
  • 1919 Treaty of Saint-Germain. Dissolution of Austria-Hungary after World War I. Austria lost all the Southern Railway south of the station at Spielfeld, Styria, which became a border station to Šentilj in the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (Kingdom of Yugoslavia from 1929, present-day Slovenia).
  • 1923: The Austrian Federal Railways took over.
  • 1945 and after: During the Cold War trade between Vienna and Trieste was mainly run through Tarvisio.
  • 1963: By now the tracks from Vienna through Tarvisio to Trieste had been electrified.
  • 1966: By now the tracks from Vienna to Graz and Yugoslavia had been electrified.
  • 2007: Border controls were abolished with Slovenia's accession to the Schengen Area.
  • 12 September 2007: A very high value collectors' coin (the Austrian Southern Railways Vienna-Triest commemorative coin) was minted: its obverse shows the locomotive "Steinbrück" with one of the typical viaducts of the Semmering Railway in the background. The engine “Steinbrück” can be seen today in the Technical Museum in Vienna. It is the oldest existing locomotive built in Austria; it was built in 1848 for the Southern Railway.

Upgrading

The railway is currently being upgraded with the Semmering Base Tunnel scheduled to be opened in 2030 as well as the new Koralm Railway branch-off to Klagenfurt, Carinthia scheduled to fully open in 2025, in total cutting travel time between Graz and Klagenfurt to 45 minutes from 3 hours and travel time between Vienna and Klagenfurt down to 2 hours and 40 minutes. The section Meidling-Mödling is being upgraded to quadruple-track railway to facilitate more trains.[3]

The section from Graz to the Slovenian border, which had been downgraded to a single track railway in the 1950s, is currently again enlarged to double track.

Train service

There are ÖBB Railjet high-speed trains operating between Vienna and Graz.

Within the Vienna metropolitan region, the sections between new Vienna Central Station, Wien Meidling, Mödling, Leobersdorf and Wiener Neustadt Hauptbahnhof are part of the suburban Vienna S-Bahn railway network.

Notes

  1. [N 1]
    Operating from 1916 until about 1918, dismantled in 1923[1]

References

  1. [1]
    Friedrich, Paul; Slezak, Josef Otto (1990). Kanal, Nostalgie, Eisenbahn (in German). Vienna: Verlag Slezak. pp. 134, 136–137, 139. ISBN 3-85416-153-0., which refers to: Witz, Johann (1974). "Zwischen Wöllersdorf und Blumau. Die Militärschleppbahnen auf dem Steinfeld". Eisenbahn (in German) (12): 181–184. ISSN 0013-2756. and Witz, Johann (1975). "Zwischen Wöllersdorf und Blumau. Die Militärschleppbahnen auf dem Steinfeld". Eisenbahn (in German) (1–2): 4–6. ISSN 0013-2756. (section: Strecke Wöllersdorf↔Mittel)
  2. [2]
    Eisenbahnatlas Deutschland [Austrian railway atlas]. Schweers + Wall. 2010. pp. 18–24, 26–31, 98, 99, 106. ISBN 978-3-89494-138-3.
  3. [3]
    "Südstrecke Wien–Villach". ÖBB-Infrastruktur AG (in German). Retrieved 2024-03-20.
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