Scenic route
Tauern Railway
Salzburg → Villach · Austria
Tauern Railway in pictures
Photographs by their authors, hosted on Wikimedia Commons · tap through for the licence
- Distance
- 183 km
- Fastest time
- 2 h 40 min
- Average speed
- 69 km/h
- Top speed
- 130 km/h
- Operator
- ÖBB
- Train
- ÖBB Railjet / EuroCity
- Countries
- Austria
- In service since
- 1909
- Runs
- every 1–2 h
- Highest point
- 1,226 m
Figures are published values, not live data · corrections log
Franz Joseph’s 1909 crossing of the Hohe Tauern: stone viaducts up the Gastein spa valley to an 8.4 km tunnel at 1,226 m.
The Tauernbahn of 1909 was the last great Alpine crossing of the Habsburg empire, opened by Emperor Franz Joseph himself at Spittal. From Salzburg the line passes the fortress of Hohenwerfen, climbs the Gastein valley on a staircase of stone viaducts past belle-époque spa hotels, and pierces the Hohe Tauern at 1,226 m. Railjets and Zagreb-bound EuroCitys share the rails with a drive-on car shuttle that rattles through the summit tunnel.
How this line was checked
- Line drawn from OpenStreetMap relation 3313693 — 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 IC 791
- Wikipedia has an article for this line
Along the way
- Hohenwerfen fortress
- Salzach valley to Schwarzach
- Gastein viaducts & waterfalls
- Bad Gastein’s belle-époque terraces
- Tauern tunnel (8.4 km, 1,226 m)
- Mölltal descent to the Drau
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