Rail Transport in Austria

Rail Transport in Austria

Rail transport in Austria is mainly owned by the national rail company ÖBB. The railway network consists of 6,123 km, its gauge is 1,435 mm (4 ft 8+1/2 in) standard gauge and 3,523 km are electrified.

Austria is a member of the International Union of Railways (UIC). The UIC Country Code for Austria is 81.

Austria Railway Transport has a total of: 6,123 km (3,523 km electrified)

• Austria standard gauge: 5,639 km 1,435 mm (4 ft 8+1⁄2 in) gauge (3,429 km electrified).
• Austria narrow gauge: 507 km (23 km 1,000 mm (3 ft 3+3⁄8 in) gauge, 13 km 600 mm (1 ft 11+5⁄8 in) gauge, 468 km 760 mm (2 ft 5+15⁄16 in) gauge - 94 km electrified, and 3 km 600 mm (1 ft 11+5⁄8 in) gauge).

The national railway system of Austria is the Österreichische Bundesbahnen, or ÖBB.

• U-Bahn

Serfaus: see Serfaus U-Bahn, complete ban on cars in the village center

Vienna: see Vienna U-Bahn

• S-Bahn

Graz
Innsbruck
Salzburg S-Bahn

Vienna: see Vienna S-Bahn

Rail Transport in Austria History

The history of Austrian rail transport starts with the Reisszug, a private, horse-drawn funicular serving Hohensalzburg Fortress. Built at the end of the 15th century and first documented in 1515, it is the oldest known funicular in the world, and possibly the oldest existing railway line.

In the 19th century, after a building of several horse tramways, it opened in 1837 the Nordbahn line Vienna-Breclav. The Imperial Royal Austrian State Railways, a company serving Austrian side of Austria-Hungary, was created in 1884 and in 1923, some years after the dissolution of the empire, it was founded the national company "ÖBB".

In 1998 the market was liberalised and had one of the highest degrees of market openness in the EU according to the 2011 Rail Liberalisation Index, although the market share of ÖBB remains above 90% for passenger rail.

Rail Transport in Austria as a Network

Austrian network, out of the principal rail system, also counts some funiculars, rack railways and lot of heritage railways mainly derived from part of disused lines. Some secondary lines have a narrow gauge.

Austria Urban Railways

• Vienna counts a system of S-Bahn, U-Bahn, and a large tramway network.

• Graz counts a regional S-Bahn, an extended tramway network and a funicular.

• Linz counts a regional S-Bahn and a tramway network including the Pöstlingbergbahn.

• Salzburg counts a regional S-Bahn and a funicular.

• Innsbruck counts a regional S-Bahn, a tramway network and a funicular.

• The little town of Gmunden counts a tramway line.

• The village of Serfaus, with the U-Bahn Serfaus, is sometimes considered as the smallest town with a subway in the world.