Tauern Railway
in Austria.
The Tauern Railway (German: Tauernbahn) is an Austrian railway line between Schwarzach-Sankt Veit in the state of Salzburg and Spittal an der Drau in Carinthia. It is part of one of the most important north-south trunk routes (Magistrale) in Europe and also carries tourist traffic for the Gastein Valley.
The standard gauge railway line is 79 km (49 mi) long and climbs the High Tauern range of the Central Eastern Alps with a maximum incline of 2.5 %, it crosses the mountain crest through the 8,371 m (27,464 ft) long Tauern Tunnel.
The building of the Tauernbahn was part of the larger "Alpine Railways" investment project pushed by the Cisleithanian government of Austria-Hungary and Minister Heinrich von Wittek from 1901 onwards to connect the restored main Austrian seaport at Trieste with Bohemia and the northern parts of the Monarchy.
Construction was executed by the public Imperial Royal Austrian State Railways to achieve an alternative route bypassing the Southern Railway line from Vienna to Trieste via the Semmering railway operated by the private Austrian Southern Railway company.
Other sections built in the course of this infrastructure investment were the Karavanke railway including the Karawanken Tunnel from Villach to Jesenice (now in Slovenia), continued by the Bohinj Railway (Wocheiner Bahn) leading through the Julian Alps to Trieste, as well as the railway line from the city of Linz across the Pyhrn Pass to the Selzthal rail hub.
Construction of the Tauern Tunnel began in July 1901, the northern ramp from Schwarzach-Sank was built from 1902 onwards. The Bad Gastein station opened in 1905. The southern ramp down to Spittal an der Drau was erected from 1906 under the supervision of the Viennese engineer and entrepreneur Wilhelm Carl Gustav von Doderer, father of the writer Heimito von Doderer.
The railway line was completed in 1909 and inaugurated by Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria at Spittal station on July 5.
The tunnel itself had been built double-track, the northern and southern sections only single-track. The Obervellach station near the southern tunnel exit, situated on a slope 365 m (1,198 ft) above the village, from 1931 could be reached by a cable car, that was dismantled in 1976.
In 1999 the Obervellach station was finally abandoned and relocated to Mallnitz. In 1933-35 the Tauern Railway line was completely electrified.
From 1969 onwards further sections were restored to double track including several new passages, viaducts and straightenings to cope with the high traffic load ad to allow higher travelling speeds, the southern ramp was completed in 2009.
Since 1920 car shuttle trains (Tauernschleuse) through the Tauern Tunnel ply between the stations of Bad Gastein-Böckstein and Mallnitz.
See Also
Sources of Information
- [1] Wikipedia