Tauern Rail Tunnel

Geschichte

The Tauern Railway Tunnel in Austria is the longest tunnel of the Tauern Railway crossing the main chain of the Alps. Currently, it has a length of 8.371km. The highest point of the tunnel, which is also the highest point in all of the railway line, is at 1226m above sea level. The tunnel's north entrance is at Böckstein in the valley of Bad Gastein in the state of Salzburg, the south entrance near Mallnitz in Carinthia.ConstructionPlans for constructing an interconnection railway line between the terminus of the Austrian Western Railway at the city of Salzburg and Villach leading to the Southern Railway already existed in the 1880s. This line would be especially important for the transportation of goods between the industrialised north of Austria-Hungary and Trieste, then the monarchy's main port on the Adriatic Sea. It was only after the Austrians had watched their neighbours, the Swiss, obtain a remarkable achievement, as they managed to finish their Gotthard Tunnel, as early as 1881.