About this journey

Schwarzach-St. Veit station sits at the northern foot of the High Tauern range and marks the start of the Tauern Railway, the line the CITYSHUTTLE follows southward through the Alps. Construction of the northern ramp from Schwarzach-St. Veit began in 1902, part of Austria-Hungary's broader 'New Alpine Railways' programme driven by the k.k. Railway Ministry from 1901 onwards. The ambition was strategic: a state-controlled alternative to the private Southern Railway's route toward Trieste, made more pressing after the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869.

The engineering centrepiece of the line is the Tauern Tunnel, 8,371 m long and built double-track from the outset, which carries the railway through the Alpine crest. The line opened in 1909 and was inaugurated by Emperor Franz Joseph I at Spittal station on 5 July of that year. Electrification followed between 1933 and 1935, and from 1969 onwards further sections were restored to double track with new viaducts and realignments. The 79 km standard-gauge line climbs the High Tauern with a maximum incline of 2.5%, and since 1920 car-shuttle trains have run through the tunnel between Bad Gastein-Böckstein and Mallnitz. The journey ends at Spittal-Millstättersee station, on the southern side of the range where the terrain opens out after the concentrated gradients and tunnelwork of the northern approach.