Eurail Pass conditions
Eurail Passes, valid for Austria, are valid on the Semmering line. No supplement or reservation required.
Train history
On December 2, 1998, the UNESCO World Heritage Committee inscribed the Semmering Railway as the world’s first railway on the world heritage list. The justification for inscription of the “Ghega Railway” read “the Semmering Railway represents an outstanding technological solution to a major physical problem in the construction of early railways”. Moreover, with the construction of the Semmering Railway, “areas of great natural beauty became more easily accessible and as a result these were developed for residential and recreational use, creating a new form of cultural landscape”.
The construction of a railway line to Trieste had been commissioned as early as 1841 by then State Minister Karl Friedrich Kübeck. In 1842, there existed already one railway line from Vienna to Gloggnitz and one from Mürzzuschlag to Bruck/Mur. Over the Semmering mountain, however, coaches needed to be pulled by horses. Therefore, the State Railways commissioned the engineer Carlo di Ghega of Venice to plan the Semmering Railway. Under his leadership, the railway line, which runs over the highest point of the world then accessible by a railway and located at an altitude of 859 m above sea level, was built in no more than six years in the period between 1848 and 1854.
Website: www.semmeringbahn.at.