About this journey

Villach Hauptbahnhof sits at an important junction on the ÖBB network, where the Southern Railway toward Vienna and the Tauern Railway toward Salzburg converge — and where international services to Ljubljana and Zagreb depart. The SŽ 610 FLIRT DMU leaves Austrian territory and crosses into Slovenia, reaching Jesenice, a station that became a significant railway junction in 1906 when the Bohinj Railway and the Karawanks Railway to Villach met there.

Beyond Jesenice the route follows the Ljubljana–Jesenice line, opened on 14 December 1870 as part of the Austro-Hungarian Rudolfsbahn network. The concession had been granted in 1869 to the Imperial and Royal privileged company of the Crown Prince Rudolf railway, and after a financial crisis the railway was nationalised in 1884, passing to the Imperial Royal Austrian State Railways. Today the surviving Jesenice–Ljubljana section runs for 64.5 km on a single-track, electrified at 3 kV DC, with only the short approach into Ljubljana switching to double track near the Šiška marshalling yards. The cross-border section north of Jesenice toward Tarvisio closed in 1969 on the Slovenian side, and part of that former trackbed now serves as a bicycle trail through the Upper Sava Valley.

The journey ends at Ljubljana station, a terminus first completed on 18 April 1848 and currently undergoing a major expansion costing around 167 million euros, with completion planned for 2026.