Semmering railway
Semmeringbahn
Interesting facts
- The line winds for about 41 km, yet its two ends lie only about 21 km apart in a straight line, and almost half of its length runs in curves.
- About a third of the roughly 20,000 people who built the railway were women.
- Construction began in 1848 partly to relieve unemployment after the revolution of that year.
- Some 89 workers died in accidents, including 14 miners killed by a rockfall at the Weinzettelwand in 1850, and several hundred more died of cholera and other diseases.
- Leading engineers of the day argued for cable-hauled inclines or a rack railway, and Ghega's winding route was mocked as a series of pointless serpentines.
- Many stations and lineside buildings were built from the rock blasted out of the tunnels, so the mountain itself supplied the masonry.
- None of the four locomotives from the 1851 trials proved reliable in service; the line was instead worked by Engerth engines with an articulated tender.
- Along the line stood 55 two-storey stone lineman's houses within sight of one another, linked by electric bells for the first time on an Austrian railway.
- In the last days of the Second World War, troops blocked the line by derailing rolling stock inside a tunnel rather than blowing up the viaducts.
- Built for trains running on the left, the line switched to right-hand running only in December 2019.
Why it is worth it
The Semmering railway climbs over an Alpine pass on a line laid out more than 170 years ago, curling along cliff ledges and crossing gorges on tiers of stone arches. Opened in the 1850s, it was the first mountain railway in Europe built to standard gauge, and it proved that ordinary trains could cross high ground at a time when many engineers doubted it.
The line runs 41 km from Gloggnitz in Lower Austria to Mürzzuschlag in Styria and overcomes a height difference of about 460 metres. Its builder was Carl von Ghega, born in Venice, who directed the work from 1848 to 1854 with a workforce of around 20,000 people. Rather than drive straight through the mountains, he followed the terrain: the route includes 14 tunnels, among them the 1,431-metre summit tunnel, 16 viaducts — several of them two storeys high — more than 100 stone-arched bridges and 11 smaller iron bridges. Gradients reach 2.5 percent, and curves tighten to a radius of 190 metres along a sixth of the way.
Because no locomotive of the day was built for such a route, a competition was held in 1851, and four machines — Bavaria, Neustadt, Seraing and Vindobona — were tested on the incline. The railway also changed the landscape it crossed: once the mountains were a short ride from Vienna, villas and hotels sprang up around the pass, making the Semmering an early holiday region. UNESCO inscribed the line as a World Heritage Site in 1998, recognising it as a landmark of early railway engineering set within a designed cultural landscape. Trains still use the line today, while a 27.3-km base tunnel under the pass has been under construction since 2012.
Getting there
The railway is part of the main line south from Vienna towards Graz, with stations at Gloggnitz, Semmering and Mürzzuschlag. The nearest larger town is Wiener Neustadt, about 35 km from the pass. The nearest airport is Graz (GRZ), about 78 km away.
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From the encyclopaedia
The Semmering Railway in Austria, which starts at Gloggnitz and leads over the Semmering to Mürzzuschlag, was the first mountain railway in Europe built with a standard gauge track. It is commonly referred to as the world's first true mountain railway, given the very difficult terrain and the considerable altitude difference that was mastered during its construction. It is still fully functional as a part of the Southern Railway which is operated by the Austrian Federal Railways.
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