About this journey

Linz Hauptbahnhof, whose first building was completed in 1858 to coincide with the arrival of the Empress Elisabeth Railway's Western Railway from Vienna, stands as one of Austria's principal rail gateways. The station was later rebuilt between 1949 and 1955 following wartime damage, and comprehensively redeveloped again between 2002 and 2004. From here the journey heads northwest, crossing into Bavaria and onto the Mühldorf–Simbach am Inn railway, a 39 km single-tracked, unelectrified main line that represents the shortest rail link between Munich and Vienna.

Passenger services across this corridor had long been interrupted before through trains between Bavaria and Upper Austria were restored on 14 December 2008, with the DB Class 628 diesel multiple unit becoming the characteristic vehicle on the route. The line is operated by SüdostBayernBahn, a wholly owned DB subsidiary. At the journey's end, Mühldorf station carries a history stretching back to 1 May 1871 and grew into a significant junction — a Trennungsbahnhof — from 1 May 1876 when the line to Rosenheim opened. Today it also functions as the central node of the Bavarian Chemical Triangle, with around 800 freight wagons dispatched daily, anchoring a very different kind of traffic alongside the passenger services that connect it to Linz.