Classic route
WESTbahn
Vienna → Salzburg · Austria
- Distance
- 315 km
- Fastest time
- 2 h 30 min
- Average speed
- 126 km/h
- Top speed
- 200 km/h
- Operator
- WESTbahn
- Train
- Stadler KISS double-decker
- Countries
- Austria
- In service since
- 2011
- Runs
- hourly (up to half-hourly with ÖBB)
Figures are published values, not live data · corrections log
Austria’s first open-access challenger, running since 2011: 200 km/h Stadler KISS double-deckers that drove fares down on the Vienna–Salzburg run.
WESTbahn was Austria’s first private challenger on the rails, launching in 2011 with Swiss double-deck KISS sets, café counters on board and walk-up fares that forced ÖBB to sharpen its own. The green-and-white trains share Austria’s premier east–west line: out through the Tullnerfeld, past Melk where the great baroque abbey rides its bluff above the Danube, then the Alpine foreland lakes before Salzburg’s fortress closes the view. Between the two operators the corridor now sees a departure roughly every quarter-hour: the densest intercity service in the Alps.
How this line was checked
- Line drawn from OpenStreetMap relation 7576704 — the same nodes OpenStreetMap holds for this railway, thinned to within under 25 m of them
- Checked against OpenStreetMap: 97.9% of this line lies within 250 m of real track (median 6 m); the longest stretch away from it is 6.5 km
- Checked against the running timetable via Transitous: our line sits under 100 m from the shape of RJX 13470
- Wikipedia has an article for this line
Along the way
- Tullnerfeld sprint
- Melk abbey above the Danube
- Enns valley market towns
- Wallersee and the Alpine foreland
- Hohensalzburg fortress finale
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Planning this trip? Journey time & direct trains: Salzburg → Vienna · Vienna → Salzburg.