The Semmering Railway The Semmering Railway

The Semmering Railway, built over 41 km of high mountains between 1848 and 1854, is one of the greatest feats of civil engineering from this pioneering phase of railway building. The high standard of the tunnels, viaducts and other works has ensured the continuous use of the line up to the present day. It runs through a spectacular mountain landscape and there are many fine buildings designed for leisure activities along the way, built when the area was opened up due to the advent of the railway.

The Semmering Railway

IT is a daring feat of civil engineering that uses sixteen viaducts(several supported by two-storey arches), fifteen tunnels and over one hundred curved stone bridges to surmount the 460m difference in height. The engineer was Carlo di Ghega, a man who pushed the technical boundaries during the pioneering heyday of railway construction.

 The track had to rise up over a kilometre-high mountain pass – which then became the highest altitude that could be reached by railway in the world – and overcome extreme radii and upward gradients. Twenty thousand workmen laboured to carve the vision from the limestone rock; such was the feat that afterwards it was triumphantly claimed that there was nowhere that a railway could not be built.
In 1854 got built the Semmering train, who was one of the first train to pass through high alpine mountains. The spectacular landscape and the monumental buildings were declared UNESCO world heritage. The railway made it easily accessible from Vienna and at the fin-de-siecle several monumental hotels were raised here. Semmering is the best known alpine resort in eastern Austria.

The Semmering line, engineered by Carl Ritter von Ghega, runs from Gloggnitz to Murzzuschlag, crosses the high Alps in a 42 km (26 mile) long section known as the Semmering Pass. It still forms part of the railway from Vienna in Austria to Italy and Slovenia. The Adriatic port of Trieste had special importance as part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire: Since it was the only access the state had to the sea, an efficient railway connection was of the utmost importance.