About this journey

Innsbruck Hauptbahnhof is one of Austria's great Alpine junctions, where the Arlberg Railway, Brenner Railway, Mittenwald Railway, Stubaitalbahn and the Lower Inn Valley Railway converge at a single station. In 2019 it recorded 315 train movements and 38,500 passengers daily. The route east from here follows the Lower Inn Valley Railway, approved by Emperor Franz Joseph I in 1853 and extended to Kufstein the following year.

From Baumkirchen, approximately 15 km east of Innsbruck Hauptbahnhof, the corridor becomes one of Austria's busiest railway lines, carrying up to 430 trains a day between there and Wörgl Hauptbahnhof. The line is currently being rebuilt as a four-track route as part of the TEN Berlin–Palermo axis. Since December 2007, this corridor has formed the spine of the Tyrol S-Bahn, with the S1 service running its full length. Wörgl Hauptbahnhof, which received main-station status on 10 December 2006, sits approximately 20 km from the Bavarian border and serves as the point where the line divides: one branch continues north via Kufstein toward Salzburg and Munich, the other heads east via Zell am See toward Salzburg, Graz and Klagenfurt. The journey thus runs between two strategic nodes — Innsbruck's Alpine crossroads and Wörgl's diverging gateway to Germany and eastern Austria.