About this journey

Graz Hauptbahnhof sits at the start of this southbound-to-northbound crossing of Austria. The station has a layered history: a first terminus opened here in 1847, a larger replacement was built between 1871 and 1876, and the current building — completed in 1956 after the 1876 structure was entirely destroyed in Allied bombing raids in 1945 — remains a listed example of 1950s public architecture. Since 2010, the station has been expanded under a long-term modernisation programme to prepare it for growing international traffic, including the future Koralm Railway connection that will route Vienna–Italy services through Graz.

The route runs north through Styria and Upper Austria toward Linz Hauptbahnhof, the busiest station in Austria outside Vienna. Linz station first opened in 1858 to receive the Empress Elisabeth Railway's Western Railway from Vienna, was rebuilt between 1949 and 1955 following wartime damage, and was entirely replaced again between 2002 and 2004. It serves the Western Railway as well as acting as terminus for the Pyhrn Railway and the Summerauer Railway. In 2018/2019 it recorded 40,800 passengers daily. The journey captures two stations reshaped repeatedly by history, connected by a corridor that remains central to Austrian long-distance rail.