ÖBB Annual Report 2025

Step by step into the future 16 This was because, alongside the station, one of two system service centers is also located here, including a base for the rescue train, with its maintenance trains that service the Koralm Railway. New era in rail transportation The opening of the Koralm Railway brought with it ÖBB’s biggest timetable change in decades. Trains now travel 29 times a day from Graz to Klagenfurt and vice versa. A journey that would take an hour and a half by car now takes just 41 minutes by train. The travel time from Vienna to Klagenfurt has also been reduced by 45 minutes to 3 hours 10 minutes. Furthermore, the new time- table creates a dense network of direct connections, such as the hourly service between Villach and Salzburg. There are also new, faster connections between Graz, Villach, Salzburg and Munich. East Tyrol also benefits: Lienz station is directly connected to Vienna via the new Southern line with two daily Railjet connections in each direction. And not only is southern Austria becoming more central, so too is Italy: Trieste can be reached in 6 hours 38 min- utes from Vienna – instead of the previous 9 hours 18 minutes, Venice in 7 hours 10 minutes instead of 7 hours 40 minutes. Once the Semmering Base Tunnel goes into operation in 2030, this will close a ring between Vienna, Graz, Villach, Salzburg and Linz, creating even more possibilities for train services and transfer options for passengers. It has been a rocky road to get here, and that is meant quite literally. Through the depths of the mountain Deep below the Koralpe, between Styria and Carinthia, lies an unexplored region. Even after countless geological test drillings and analyses, it is not possible to completely determine which types of rock are to be found here. This uncertainty was one of the biggest challenges and posed many risks during the construction of the Koralm Railway. Depending on the geology, a specific excavation method is required for constructing the tunnel – and this can vary from meter to meter. The Koralm Tunnel forms the heart of the route. It runs through the Koralpe mountain massif at a depth of up to 1,200 meters and is 33 kilometers long, making it the sixth longest tunnel in the world. One of the three tunnel boring machines, “Mauli 1,” even set a world record with over 17 kilometers of continuous excavation in the Styrian section. Today, the two parallel tubes, each with a diameter of 10 meters and connected by cross-passages every 500 meters, meet the highest safety and technical standards. Breakthrough! The ultimate breakthrough was finally celebrated in 2020 – a key milestone for keeping to the schedule. At this point, the tunnel project was still only midway on its 27-year journey to completion, which began with the initial planning work in 1998. Before the first passengers were able to board, the new high- performance line underwent intensive testing. Locomotives, diagnostic rail vehicles and Railjets collected important data on 280 test runs at speeds of up to TRAINING EXERCISE. The rescue train is based at St. Paul station Never before have people traveled faster by land from Graz to Klagenfurt. Koralm Railway Data & Facts 27 years in construction 130 kilometers total length, 50 of which in 12 tunnels 33 kilometers in length makes the Koralm Tunnel the sixth lon- gest railroad tunnel in the world 17.1 kilometers of continuous excavation during the construc- tion of the Koralm Tunnel set a world record 100 bridges along the route