Scenic route
Semmeringbahn
Vienna → Graz · Austria
Semmeringbahn in pictures
Photographs by their authors, hosted on Wikimedia Commons · tap through for the licence
- Distance
- 224 km
- Fastest time
- 2 h 35 min
- Average speed
- 87 km/h
- Top speed
- 230 km/h
- Operator
- ÖBB
- Train
- Railjet
- Countries
- Austria
- In service since
- 1854
- Runs
- hourly Railjets
- Highest point
- 898 m
Figures are published values, not live data · corrections log
The world’s first true mountain railway (1854) and a UNESCO site: 16 viaducts built before the age of dynamite.
Some 20,000 labourers built Carl von Ghega’s masterpiece with picks, barrows and mule trains, and Railjets still cross their stone double-deck viaducts every hour on the way to Graz. The showpiece section between Gloggnitz and Mürzzuschlag stacks curved galleries against the Rax cliffs: views so prized they once graced Austria’s 20-schilling banknote. Ride it with intent: when the Semmering Base Tunnel opens, the expresses will duck beneath the pass and leave the old line to stopping trains and hikers.
How this line was checked
- Line drawn from OpenStreetMap relation 10757934 — the same nodes OpenStreetMap holds for this railway, thinned to within under 25 m of them
- Checked against OpenStreetMap: the whole line lies on real track, a median 6 m from it
- Checked against the running timetable via Transitous: our line sits under 100 m from the shape of WB 1003
- Wikipedia has an article for this line
Along the way
- Gloggnitz castle at the foot of the ramp
- Kalte Rinne Viaduct
- Adlitzgraben horseshoe curves
- Semmering station at the 898 m summit
- Mürz valley descent to Bruck
- Graz’s red-roofed old town
More scenic routes
- Glacier Express
“The world’s slowest express”: 291 bridges, 91 tunnels and the 2,033 m Oberalp Pass at an average of 36 km/h.
Wikipedia ↗ - Bernina Express
A UNESCO World Heritage railway: 7 % grades with no rack, the Brusio spiral, and the highest rail crossing of the Alps at 2,253 m.
Wikipedia ↗ - Bergensbanen
Northern Europe’s highest main line: over the bare Hardangervidda plateau at 1,237 m, through 182 tunnels.
Wikipedia ↗ - West Highland Line
Regularly voted the world’s most scenic railway: around Rannoch Moor and over the 21-arch Glenfinnan Viaduct of film fame.
Wikipedia ↗
More train routes in Austria.
Planning this trip? Journey time & direct trains: Graz → Vienna · Vienna → Graz.