About this journey

Maribor station, erected in 1844 and upgraded in 2021, stands at the heart of a city whose growth was shaped by the railway from the outset: the Southern Railway Company built its main workshop here, providing employment and driving the city's development. The line followed is the Zidani Most – Šentilj route, part of the historic Austrian Southern Railway that once connected Vienna to Trieste, constructed by the state-owned k.k. Südliche Staatsbahn.

After the First World War in 1918, the Southern Railway was divided among Austria, Yugoslavia, and Italy, with the border fixed at Šentilj. The cross-border section between Maribor and Spielfeld-Straß has been single-track since reparations were paid to the Soviet Union after the Second World War, and a second track alongside a new Pekel tunnel north of Maribor was planned for completion by 2026. The section was electrified in May 1977, joining an Austrian network already energised in May 1972.

At Spielfeld-Straß station, the system separation point between the Slovenian 3 kV DC network and the Austrian 15 kV 16.7 Hz AC network marks the technical boundary between the two countries. From 1918 until December 2007, when Slovenia joined the Schengen Agreement, all international trains stopped here for passport control — a formality that no longer interrupts a journey that today crosses the border without pause.