About this journey

Salzburg Hauptbahnhof station entered the European rail network in 1860, when the Bavarian Maximilian's Railway from Munich and the Empress Elisabeth Railway to Vienna first connected the city. The Tauern Railway, completed in 1909, further elevated the station's role as a southern transit hub, and the line's branch at Schwarzach-St. Veit forms the key corridor that this journey follows toward Villach and Klagenfurt.

The route descends through Carinthia toward Klagenfurt Hauptbahnhof, which has been served by rail since 1 June 1863, when the city was linked to the Southern Railway via the Carinthian branch line. The station's reception hall contains a large fresco by Giselbert Hoke, completed in 1956 in the style of Pablo Picasso. Arriving here in January 2024, the journey reaches a hub on the threshold of significant change: the Koralm Railway, a 127 km double-track electrified line connecting Klagenfurt to Graz, had just opened its Carinthian section in December 2023. Its centrepiece, the 33 km Koralm Tunnel, is designed to carry passenger trains at up to 250 km/h, cutting the Klagenfurt–Graz journey from three hours to 41 minutes. This ride through the older mountain corridor captures the route as it stood before that transformation fully reshaped Austria's southern rail spine.