About this journey

The journey begins at München Hauptbahnhof, a terminal station that opened at its current site in 1849 and today handles around 450,000 passengers a day across 32 mainline platforms. From here the route heads south toward the Alps and one of Europe's most historically significant railway crossings.

The Brenner Railway was designed under the Austrian Empire in the mid-19th century to guarantee rapid transport between Tyrol and northern Italy, carrying both economic and military importance. The 127-kilometre section between Innsbruck and Bolzano/Bozen was completed in just three years and opened on 24 August 1867, making it the first through line to cross the Alps. Its chief engineer, Karl von Etzel, died in 1865 and never saw his work finished; a monument to him stands at Brenner station. The line's gradients are demanding — a maximum of 31 per thousand — and to overcome the 796-metre climb between Innsbruck and the pass, builders constructed spiral tunnels on each side.

The journey ends at Brenner station, which sits at 1,371 metres above sea level, the highest point on both the ÖBB and Ferrovie dello Stato standard-gauge networks. The station also marks the boundary between Austria's 15,000 V AC at 16.7 Hz system and Italy's 3,000 V DC network. The Taurus locomotive hauling this service is a Class 1216, a multi-current type capable in principle of crossing that electrical frontier — a contrast to the rigid constraints that defined this summit for most of the railway's history.