About this journey

Stainz station is the western terminus of the Stainzerbahn, one of Austria's few remaining 760 mm narrow-gauge steam railways, running 11.3 km through Steiermark (Styria) to Preding Wieselsdorf. The line is affectionately known as the Stainzer Flascherlzug, a colloquial name that has followed it through its years as a heritage operation.

Austria's 760 mm gauge network, which totalled 88 km as of 2008, was built partly by provincial governments and partly by other operators; some lines remained in common carrier use while others became preservation projects. The Stainzerbahn belongs to the latter tradition, kept alive by enthusiasm for steam traction on narrow-gauge track long after such railways disappeared from most of the country. Heritage railway listings have noted the service as suspended, making this August 2022 recording a document of the line at a particular and uncertain moment in its history.

The journey from Stainz to Preding Wieselsdorf spans the full length of the railway. What the Stainzerbahn offers across those 11.3 km is the particular pace and texture of 760 mm steam operation — a scale of railway that, on Austria's diminishing network of this gauge, grows rarer with each passing decade.