Related Content
A key route in south Austria to be closed for more than 6 months
Reconstruction works will impact on the route between Salzburg and Villach, which is taken by the night trains that link Germany and Italy!
Simon HarperShare
A major and very scenic rail route in Austria, the Tauern Railway, is to be closed for more than six months, for construction work from November 18th to July 27th.
The Tauern Railway is the main railway route in south-west Austria, as it links Salzburg with Villach and Klagenfurt, but between these dates the plan is for buses to replace trains between Bischofshofen and Spittal-Millstätter.
Though it looks as though trains will be able to travel beyond Bischofshofen to provide a direct service between Salzburg and the other key destination along the route, which is Bad Gastein.
The work will be carried out in phases, so from November 18th to March 2nd the route will be closed between Bad Gastein, which is to the north of the main construction site at The Tauern Tunnel, and Mallnitz-Obervellach.
During this period a an express replacement bus servoce will be provided between Bischofshofen and Spittal-Millstätter stations.
The affected routes
The long distance services which typically travel the length of the Tauern Railway are on these two routes.
- Frankfurt (Main) - Stuttgart - München Hbf - Salzburg ↔ Bischofshofen - Bad Gastein - Spittal-Millstätter - Villach - Klagenfurt
- Wien Hbf - St Polten - Linz - Salzburg ↔ Bischofshofen - Bad Gastein - Spittal-Millstätter - Villach - Klagenfurt
A key function of these trains to/from Wien Hbf is to provide a direct link between both Wien and Linz with Bad Gastein, but during the work these trains will be turned around in Salzburg.
There will seemingly be EC trains operating a Frankfurt (Main) - Stuttgart - München Hbf - Salzburg ↔ Bischofshofen - Bad Gastein service, but from November 18th there will be no direct trains between Salzburg and the resort towns on the Worthersee between Villach and Klagenfurt.
The trains taking the Wien - Leoben ↔ Klagenfurt - Villach route are unaffected and it looks as though more of them will have their journeys extended beyond Villach to/from Spittal-Millstätter.
on to The Balkans
What will be impacted by the work on the Tauern Railway are the daytime rail journeys which link Germany, Salzburg and other destinations in western Austria with Slovenia and Croatia.
The trains on the Frankfurt (Main) - Stuttgart - München Hbf - Salzburg ↔ Bischofshofen - Bad Gastein - Spittal-Millstätter - Villach - Klagenfurt route typically connect at Villach with trains taking a Villach ↔ Lesce-Beld - Ljubljana - Zidane Most - Zagreb - Vinkovici route.
Impact on Night trains
The Tauern Valley route is also typically used by multiple night train routes.
As a consequence the trains on these routes will seemingly be suspended from November 17, 2024 to July 13, 2025.
- Stuttgart - München - Salzburg ↔ Udine - Venice
- München ↔ Verona - Milano Rogoredo - Genova - La Spezia
- München ↔ Firenze - Roma
While the trains which take these routes:
- Stuttgart - München - Salzburg ↔ Ljubljana - Zagreb
- Zurich - Buchs - Feldkirch - Salzburg ↔ Ljubljana - Zagreb
will be diverted on to a longer route via Graz.
Simon Harper
I wanted to share my passion for train travel and explain how anyone can take the fantastic journeys I have taken.
This is one of more than 100 train travel guides available on ShowMeTheJourney, which will make it easier to take the train journeys you want or need to make. As always, all images were captured on trips taken by ShowMeTheJourney.
This second version of ShowMeTheJourney is exciting and new, so we are genuinely thrilled that you are here and reading this, but we also need your help.
We’re striving not to let anything get in the way of providing the most useful service possible, hence a facility has been set up with DonorBox which can be used to support the running costs and make improvements.
Instead of advertising or paywalls, your financial support will make a positive difference to delivering an enhanced service, as there’s a lot of ideas which we want to make happen.
So if you have found the info provided here to be useful, please consider saying thank you.
