Classic route
Brenner Railway
Munich → Verona · Germany · Austria · Italy
Brenner Railway in pictures
Photographs by their authors, hosted on Wikimedia Commons · tap through for the licence
- Distance
- 442 km
- Fastest time
- ≈ 5 h 20 min
- Average speed
- 83 km/h
- Top speed
- 200 km/h
- Operator
- ÖBB · DB
- Train
- ÖBB Railjet (EuroCity)
- Countries
- Germany, Austria, Italy
- In service since
- 1867
- Runs
- every 2 h
- Highest point
- 1,371 m
Figures are published values, not live data · corrections log
Munich to Verona over the first railway across the main Alpine crest (1867), still topping the open pass at 1,371 m: no summit tunnel, just a border station.
Carl von Etzel’s 1867 line was the first railway over the main Alpine crest, and it still crosses in the open air: the border station at Brenner sits at 1,371 m with no great tunnel beneath it, at least until the Brenner Base Tunnel opens in the 2030s. The through trains run Munich to Verona in about five and a half hours — out across the Bavarian plain, over the Inn at Rosenheim and into Tyrol at Kufstein, then up the Sill valley beneath the Europabrücke, over the pass and down the Eisack gorge to the vineyards of Bolzano and the Adige orchards. Railjet sets replaced the last EuroCity coaches in 2026. It remains the busiest freight crossing of the Alps, so the window show includes an endless parade of trains.
How this line was checked
- Line drawn from OpenStreetMap relation 3654988 — the same nodes OpenStreetMap holds for this railway, thinned to within 40 m of them
- Checked against OpenStreetMap: the whole line lies on real track, a median 11 m from it
- Checked against the running timetable via ÖBB Scotty: our line sits 0.1 km from the shape of RJ 83
- Wikipedia has an article for this line
Along the way
- Inn crossing at Rosenheim
- Kufstein fortress and the Tyrolean Inn valley
- Wipptal climb beneath the Europabrücke
- Brenner Pass station (1,371 m)
- Eisack gorge into Bolzano
- Adige valley to Verona
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More train routes in Germany · Austria · Italy.
Planning this trip? Journey time & direct trains: Munich → Verona · Verona → Munich.